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A review by aliterarylion
Judgment Road by Christine Feehan
2.0
This book was insane. Totally steamy, but problematic as hell. The only reason I completed this book so quickly was because I tended to skim and I was stuck at the car dealership for four hours with nothing else to read. The book deserves a whole star for how hot it was but it was even disturbing at times how far the author chose to go. I will say, despite my reservations, Torpedo Ink is far superior to Christine Feehan's Carpathian Vampires series. Why would you start off the series with an utter sociopath and a woman with the personality of dryer lint?
Reaper
I had an incredible amount of problems with our "hero", or piece or garbage, Reaper. His real name was never even addressed but it was the beautiful Russian name Savva Pajari. Everyone in the Torpedo Ink Crew came from a horrific compound in Russia where they were trained to be murderous sexual machines. Reaper and his brother Savage were the Sergeant at Arms who protected their leader, Csar, at all times. Like I said, the entire plot of this was so interesting and I had never read a motorcycle romance before Judgement Road. The cringy dialogue and psychotic character ruined it for me.
Reaper was reticent and was whining about the new bartender, Anya. Anya is a wet dish rag and the apparent love interest. He has no legitimate reason for disliking her other than being new and she gives him a boner. Really? Get over yourself! He does nothing to tell her of his disdain but stares at her the entire shift and goes over her head to complain to Csar. He gives her a ride home to find out she's living in her car and orders her to live on the enormous Torpedo Ink compound instead. Nobody locks doors and they walk around naked. WTF?
All you need to know about Reaper is he's an alpha, only uses boring "babe" as an endearment (I swear he says it 50 times), possessive, and is severely damaged. I'll get to that final thought later, but jeez get that dude a psychiatrist.
Anya
Cheese and crackers, Anya had to be one of the most one-dimensional "heroines" I have ever read. Christine Feehan puts so much effort in creating her alpha males that all her females are pathetic and boring. Anya had zero personality and the only thing that entices Reaper is her body. He pontificates endlessly about her long hair, hips, butt, breasts, and not much about her face. Burn.
She is tied into the plot for the dumbest reason in the world and when she announces that she can do fancy bar tending tricks I actually said to myself, "They better not incorporate this into the drama." They did. She was so boring and utterly compliant to the madness happening around her. The only times she would deign to refuse were at the worst moments. She yelled at the leader of the motorcycle club when Reaper was conflicted to pick her or TI, when Reaper inevitably chose her to be his "old lady". Which is an incredible honor in the Motorcycle Crew world, mind you, and she was as weak as watered-down wine. She was totally awful and I have high hopes for the future women in this series to be stronger than the human 5-pound DUMB-bell known as Anya.
Problematic Issues
Where do I start? This book would have gotten one star due to the awful content but those scenes were hot. Most of them, at least. Slightly spoiler-y but you should be warned:
-Aggressive behavior towards woman he likes including staring, nonverbal body language, and sense of possession despite his disdain
-Pulls and drags her to places he wants her to move
-Demands her to leave doors unlocked in unknown place to her
-Dominating personality and takes over her life
Sexual Red Flags
-Has unprotected sex twice with her despite her wanting to use protection after thinking about it. They don't use condoms at all in the book and it is never discussed again.
-Spunks on her back, writes "Reaper's Property" in the mess, and makes her wear his mark under her clothes all day without rinsing it off. Gross
-Violates her mouth when she's sleeping from a nightmare and doesn't quite apologize
-She is handcuffed in front of the entire crew for an interrogation and she vomits onto herself.
(Not sexual but very disturbing)
If a psychologist were to analyze these characters, they would have a grocery list of diagnoses regarding the disturbing behavior featured in this book. Most of it was hot, but I was skeeved out most of the time. Anya was awful and Reaper was an alpha male I hated. I want the following books to be much better but yuck. Be wary of this book and don't idealize your relationship over this motorcycle wreck.
Reaper
I had an incredible amount of problems with our "hero", or piece or garbage, Reaper. His real name was never even addressed but it was the beautiful Russian name Savva Pajari. Everyone in the Torpedo Ink Crew came from a horrific compound in Russia where they were trained to be murderous sexual machines. Reaper and his brother Savage were the Sergeant at Arms who protected their leader, Csar, at all times. Like I said, the entire plot of this was so interesting and I had never read a motorcycle romance before Judgement Road. The cringy dialogue and psychotic character ruined it for me.
Reaper was reticent and was whining about the new bartender, Anya. Anya is a wet dish rag and the apparent love interest. He has no legitimate reason for disliking her other than being new and she gives him a boner. Really? Get over yourself! He does nothing to tell her of his disdain but stares at her the entire shift and goes over her head to complain to Csar. He gives her a ride home to find out she's living in her car and orders her to live on the enormous Torpedo Ink compound instead. Nobody locks doors and they walk around naked. WTF?
All you need to know about Reaper is he's an alpha, only uses boring "babe" as an endearment (I swear he says it 50 times), possessive, and is severely damaged. I'll get to that final thought later, but jeez get that dude a psychiatrist.
Anya
Cheese and crackers, Anya had to be one of the most one-dimensional "heroines" I have ever read. Christine Feehan puts so much effort in creating her alpha males that all her females are pathetic and boring. Anya had zero personality and the only thing that entices Reaper is her body. He pontificates endlessly about her long hair, hips, butt, breasts, and not much about her face. Burn.
She is tied into the plot for the dumbest reason in the world and when she announces that she can do fancy bar tending tricks I actually said to myself, "They better not incorporate this into the drama." They did. She was so boring and utterly compliant to the madness happening around her. The only times she would deign to refuse were at the worst moments. She yelled at the leader of the motorcycle club when Reaper was conflicted to pick her or TI, when Reaper inevitably chose her to be his "old lady". Which is an incredible honor in the Motorcycle Crew world, mind you, and she was as weak as watered-down wine. She was totally awful and I have high hopes for the future women in this series to be stronger than the human 5-pound DUMB-bell known as Anya.
Problematic Issues
Where do I start? This book would have gotten one star due to the awful content but those scenes were hot. Most of them, at least. Slightly spoiler-y but you should be warned:
-Aggressive behavior towards woman he likes including staring, nonverbal body language, and sense of possession despite his disdain
-Pulls and drags her to places he wants her to move
-Demands her to leave doors unlocked in unknown place to her
-Dominating personality and takes over her life
Sexual Red Flags
-Has unprotected sex twice with her despite her wanting to use protection after thinking about it. They don't use condoms at all in the book and it is never discussed again.
-Spunks on her back, writes "Reaper's Property" in the mess, and makes her wear his mark under her clothes all day without rinsing it off. Gross
-Violates her mouth when she's sleeping from a nightmare and doesn't quite apologize
-She is handcuffed in front of the entire crew for an interrogation and she vomits onto herself.
(Not sexual but very disturbing)
If a psychologist were to analyze these characters, they would have a grocery list of diagnoses regarding the disturbing behavior featured in this book. Most of it was hot, but I was skeeved out most of the time. Anya was awful and Reaper was an alpha male I hated. I want the following books to be much better but yuck. Be wary of this book and don't idealize your relationship over this motorcycle wreck.