Helpful Score: 4
I cannot emphasize this enough: this book is a nightmare. Do not read it. If you do, you will never ever stop regretting the money and time wasted. That you paid for and read this book will haunt you until the end of your days.
*SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS*
It tricked me by starting out well, Honor seemed smart, tough, and likable and the initial setup unique and interesting. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking trying to incorporate ISIS into a romance novel (she renamed them A New Era, but they are obviously modeled after ISIS) but I thought maybe Maya Banks had finally resurrected the KGI series which frankly has been boring and forgettable for a while now. Maya Banks tricked me. I will never pay actual currency for any of her books again.
Hancock pursues her, knowing she will suffer a horrific months long torture and gang rape filled death and when he meets her and she seems tough and smart he only then feels sorry for her and explicitly says he wouldn't feel the same way because you know if she had acted like most women in a terrifying situation and trusted him too quickly she wouldn't be as sympathetic to him.
And thus begins HUNDREDS of pages explicitly laying out the unmitigated saint that women need to be to not deserve to be "sacrificed for the greater good". Honor is a caricature. Never thinking of herself, saving his teammates life, unstintingly brave and loving, why she not only tells him it's ok that he is giving her to men who will rape and torture her she OFFERS HIM SOLACE, COMFORT, AND HER VIRGINITY. But she needs to be the cartoon character of a perfect woman because only then will she maybe be worth saving - women are worthless pawns to ISIS - oh I mean Hancock ;)
He knowingly has unprotected sex with her while fully intending to give her (and his kid, but he doesn't care because his penis was hard) to men for months and months of rape and torture because he felt like it was worth the sacrifice. You want to know who else regularly turns a blind eye to the slaughter, torture, degradation of other people because they feel like it serves a good purpose? Terrorists. Terrorists do that. Hancock is a terrorist who didn't even change his mind about saving a woman he professes to love from suffering unbelievably until she spread her legs for him. Then and only then did he decide that she was worth saving.
The book ends with her convincing him (after he screwed up and got her tortured after all even after he got his dick wet and decided maybe she deserved to live after all) that she will always feel safe with him because he's such a "badass". Nothing says badass like blubbering your way through 400 pages about how you love this woman just not enough to protect her from rape and oh how sad you will be once she finally dies :( Oh and with a cringe inducing scene where he's scared of her getting pregnant again even though she had an ucomplicated birth the first time because he just wuvs her SO much. True wuv. The kind where he'll send you off for gang rape and electroshocks but feel so, so sad about it.
*SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS*
It tricked me by starting out well, Honor seemed smart, tough, and likable and the initial setup unique and interesting. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking trying to incorporate ISIS into a romance novel (she renamed them A New Era, but they are obviously modeled after ISIS) but I thought maybe Maya Banks had finally resurrected the KGI series which frankly has been boring and forgettable for a while now. Maya Banks tricked me. I will never pay actual currency for any of her books again.
Hancock pursues her, knowing she will suffer a horrific months long torture and gang rape filled death and when he meets her and she seems tough and smart he only then feels sorry for her and explicitly says he wouldn't feel the same way because you know if she had acted like most women in a terrifying situation and trusted him too quickly she wouldn't be as sympathetic to him.
And thus begins HUNDREDS of pages explicitly laying out the unmitigated saint that women need to be to not deserve to be "sacrificed for the greater good". Honor is a caricature. Never thinking of herself, saving his teammates life, unstintingly brave and loving, why she not only tells him it's ok that he is giving her to men who will rape and torture her she OFFERS HIM SOLACE, COMFORT, AND HER VIRGINITY. But she needs to be the cartoon character of a perfect woman because only then will she maybe be worth saving - women are worthless pawns to ISIS - oh I mean Hancock ;)
He knowingly has unprotected sex with her while fully intending to give her (and his kid, but he doesn't care because his penis was hard) to men for months and months of rape and torture because he felt like it was worth the sacrifice. You want to know who else regularly turns a blind eye to the slaughter, torture, degradation of other people because they feel like it serves a good purpose? Terrorists. Terrorists do that. Hancock is a terrorist who didn't even change his mind about saving a woman he professes to love from suffering unbelievably until she spread her legs for him. Then and only then did he decide that she was worth saving.
The book ends with her convincing him (after he screwed up and got her tortured after all even after he got his dick wet and decided maybe she deserved to live after all) that she will always feel safe with him because he's such a "badass". Nothing says badass like blubbering your way through 400 pages about how you love this woman just not enough to protect her from rape and oh how sad you will be once she finally dies :( Oh and with a cringe inducing scene where he's scared of her getting pregnant again even though she had an ucomplicated birth the first time because he just wuvs her SO much. True wuv. The kind where he'll send you off for gang rape and electroshocks but feel so, so sad about it.
Helpful Score: 3
Amanda, I agree with you completely. This was soooooo badly written, it's hard to understand why anyone would even publish it. But you were too generous with your stars; it gets 1/2 star only because if I gave it no stars, someone might think I forgot to rate it. Pure garbage. Far-fetched storyline. Totally unbelievable characterizations. I can't think of one good thing to say about this book - it is horrible.
I guess maybe I saw things in this book from a little different point of view. I remember how Hancock has popped up in other books, and the whole idea of him sacrificing one for the "greater good" really didn't surprise me all that much. After all he let Rio leave with Grace, and eventually took her back to hand over to the bad guy in Echoes at Dawn convinced in his own superiority. He let Maren be taken in Forged in Steele and only compromised his mission when it became obvious to him that the safety of her unborn child had been compromised. I truly think that if it had just been Maren, and that Maren hadn't been pregnant he would have just let it play out. So the story line here didn't really surprise me a lot. He struggled with the idea of sacrificing Honor. It would be very easy to see some of his repetitive thinking about the "greater good" and that kind of thing as a lack of author originality, but I've seen too many people in life keep repeating things to themselves or others over and over again to try and convince themselves that they are right or justified in their actions. I did feel that Honor was too accepting of her situation, and a little too quick to forgive early on in the story. Overall it wasn't an awful addition to the series, but then I'm not a stickler for complete believe-ability in the romances I read. I read them for the enjoyment and the escape and entertainment. It wasn't a book I struggled to get through or had to force myself to finish. I don't know if it will be one I will reread in the future like I have Echoes at Dawn or Whispers in the Dark, but I was satisfied with the overall story.
I enjoyed Maya Bank's Darkest Before Dawn. But I found that the first two thirds of the book, was the main two characters' inner dialogue. It made the storyline a little slow reading. In the final third of the book, the action happens and there is more dialogue between the characters. Not one of my favorites of the KGI series.
It was an ok read. I skimmed a few pages to get to the good stuff.
I'm glad I didn't skip this book.
I'm glad I didn't skip this book.
