Rise

No stars, because I not only absolutely hated the experience but couldn't get past one particularly infuriating development to finish it. (More about that in the spoiler marked sections.)

First off, the writing style is repetitive and the book is filled with errors an editor should have noticed. (“Aquittance” where it should say “acquaintance,” “too” where it should say “to.”) Nearly every sentence follows the same structure. Example: “Taking her by the hand, I was surprised to find that she wasn???t as reluctant to accept it as she had been earlier. Leading her to the couch, I waited until she took a seat before sitting beside her. Catching her move away, I knew she was uneasy with the close space between us.”

Both narrating characters have the same, detached voice such that their narration is only distinguishable by the actual context and content and not the voice used. ALL characters speak in the same, unnatural voice, and none of them sound like people in their circumstances should. Have an example from a flashback a couple of pages in, between a five-year-old child and her dad: ???Push me higher, Daddy, I want to go higher and fly like the birds.??? / ???Lanie, if I push you any higher you are going to fall.??? / ???I won???t, Daddy. I promise to hold on tight.??? It just doesn't sound at all like a father/daughter interaction or like a child at all and I don't know a single person who speaks so ‘properly' in everyday circumstances.

And worldbuilding... well, if only there were some! It's confusingly inconsistent. During the first two pages, we discover that the narrator has been in captivity for fourteen years (from the book summary and context clues, we know she has been kept and trained as a sex slave)... yet she knows the exact town and state where she lives and has access to a window leading outdoors which she apparently doesn't use to attempt escape. She also remembers knowing her dad put in extra hours at work to buy her a swing set. As if she'd have known back then or had any context to learn the concept of working overtime in the time she's been held captive in an attic and pimped out by a horrible man.

And I mean unbelievably horrible - as well as inconsistently. We're meant to believe that the kind of monster who'd kick her knee for the hell of it when she's scared she upset him (thus begging forgiveness on her knees) is also the kind of guy who'd wait until she's eighteen before violating her. At least, there's a mention of Lanie having been dealing with his clients for 'months' which seems to imply it only started when she was eighteen. Regardless, it's impossible to believe that she wasn't killed years ago by this psycho, since she seems to think begging that way is the proper response to his presence and he seems to think it's a “charade” worthy of cruelly hurting her. It's been fourteen years; she'd have surely learned by now not to think that would help and he'd have surely hurt her far worse after the first few times it happened in the past.

Then there's the portrayal of BDSM. Specifically, while I'm completely okay with the fact that bad people absolutely do make use of the practices and lifestyle, I take issue with our supposed saviour-protagonist clearly having no concept of Safe, Sane, Consensual while also apparently owning a BDSM club. Not to mention that it's highly unlikely the owner of such a club, if a decent person, would turn a blind eye to a colleague who abuses and sells young women as slaves or coldly dismiss this as not his business after discovering that one such girl was acquired as a child.

Which, of course, leads us to the completely mixed-up and deplorable mess that is supposed to be the protagonist who saves the traumatized female lead. This is billed as a romance and it's no spoiler - given the book summary reveals it - to say he purchases her to save her. Morally grey, sure, but it shows a kind heart. He drops a large sum of money to protect the girl when he sees how young and scared she looks; he can't stand the idea of having her abused further. I like this. It's a good concept for a dark BDSM story with a traumatic past for one of the characters. What I don't like is how he behaves afterward.

Roman learns immediately that Lanie has been held captive for fourteen years by a man he knows to be sexually and physically abusive - and that she's only nineteen now. He doesn't even show a hint of disgust toward the implications or the fact she was literally taken as a child. It may as well have been the weather they were discussing! But it gets worse, because apparently our supposed hero doesn't comprehend anything remotely related to consent or human decency and decides that it's a great idea to use Lanie “to show her pleasure” as if that's doing her some big favour.

Roman kisses Lanie deeply despite having no indication she might want the contact... then decides to ask her if she's ever kissed before. All this after witnessing her shyness and discomfort since she arrived in his home and learning that she's been trained since childhood into forced subservience. When she reveals that she's never been allowed to kiss anyone before, his disgust at her being used as a sex object is far overshadowed by his solution being... to use her as a sex object. It was that part which led me to rage quit this book. A character I'm supposed to view as a protagonist and love interest for the traumatized, abused girl thinks this of her: "I knew what Winston used his girls for, so I knew that she was no longer a virgin. But not being a virgin didn???t mean that she felt the pleasures that every woman should. Maybe it was time she knew." I was so disgusted and angry at his delusional, self-righteous idiocy that I couldn't keep going. Not once does he wonder if she consents. Not once does he consider she may have been abused for all of the years she'd been with Winston - since age five. Not once does he consider that it's likely impossible for a girl raised like that from such a young age to understand or give consent. Not once does he even consider helping her by treating her properly and NOT sticking his tongue in her mouth or dick in her vag. Not once does he consider that maybe she doesn't want pleasure but instead may want freedom. Not once does he ask her how she feels about anything! He just jumps right to thinking he should fuck her to show her 'pleasure' despite knowing enough of her dark past to assume the rest.When she rightly pushes him away after becoming overwhelmed, he's so pathetically self-absorbed and lacking of awareness that he can't even guess why. (She's never kissed anyone before, just had her first kiss without consent, was previously not ALLOWED to kiss anyone, and decided she wanted to try kissing Roman again. He gets too into it, she gets scared, and she pushes him away. It's pretty obvious she's overwhelmed.) Instead, he denies her the basic human right of fleeing and commands her to stop running so he can demand to know why she pushed him away. I wanted to reach through the pages and murder him, especially since his narrative was presented as if he were being helpful and kind and considerate in forcing her to explain the very obvious issue of why she was uncomfortable with having physical intimacy pushed upon her.

Beyond that, emotional moments are flat and feel clinical, with someone who should be deeply psychologically scarred sounding far too adjusted and aware of her own issues. It's not convincing when a character detachedly mentions an inner conflict which should be causing duress or addresses almost-clinically thoughts which should be happening subconsciously instead of within their awareness. Perhaps as a third-person narrative it would have worked better, but even then the writing had too many weak points for me to think I would have enjoyed it with only a POV change.

It's a shame, because I liked the premise of someone escaping abuse and sexual slavery with the help of a kind person who falls in love with them and buys their freedom. With a better protagonist and stronger writing, the concept could be good. But that's just not the case here. At all.

(Full disclosure: I recieved a review copy of this book through BookSirens. As mentioned, I did not manage to finish reading and have thus abstained from giving a starred review.)