The Last Rebellion

So... this is a thing I read. The things I have read include this. I knew what I was getting into, more or less - details on that in the actual review - and yet still I'm sitting here like:



Important Warning: This review discusses the contents of a book which include graphic nonconsensual sex, graphic torture, graphic sexual torture, insidious psychological torture, mindbreak, unhealthy D/s dynamics, unhealthy BDSM, military notions of torture being ‘a necessary evil', war and vague discussions of it, military-sanctioned sexual assault, Stockholm syndrome, and a vague ending. Also, possibly some other things I've forgotten to mention.

Reader discretion is advised, both for the book itself and for my review. (Hidden behind a spoiler tag for sanity and convenience of fellow goodreads users.)

The Last Rebellion is the story of Rho, a rebel soldier specializing in recon/intel, who was captured by the government as a prisoner of war. Despite countless tortures and endless rapes by the monsters who hold him captive, he refuses to speak even so much as his name to the enemy. This captures the attention of Miller, a high-ranking government official in charge of overseeing the breaking of prisoners and therefore the discovery of important information. After three months of unending torture and defilement, Rho still hasn't broken, and that leads Miller - renowned for his skill as an interrogator - to make Rho his personal project.Just what does the government stand for, other than raping prisoners of war being a "necessary evil"? What is this Rebellion and what do they stand for? Fuck if I know, because it's never explained - possibly because that could lead down a disgusting rabbit hole of equating this fantasy fodder to reality. Personally, I filled in the blanks with lore from Firefly just so I'd have some semblance of motives to put behind the two sides of the war. Incidentally, that made me laugh inappropriately when I remembered the line "You can't take the sky from me" in the theme song every time Miller taunted Rho with promises of seeing the sky again someday if only he would break.As for the story itself, I... Man, I don't even know where to begin. This is very much written as a dark kink sort of thing, which means I worry I'm expecting too much of the plot when I feel dissatisfied with the logistics of some of the events and the pacing. My qualms are almost certainly things which are deliberately written to cater to a hyper-specific fantasy, and I feel like I'm toeing a dangerous line here because I'm not out to judge people for their fantasies and kinks (so long as those are explored only in fiction and/or acted out between adults in scenarios that are safe, sane, and consensual) but I also want to share why this book was only a two-star read for me.I think perhaps my biggest problem is that the story is tonally inconsistent when it comes to Rho's condition and Miller's motives.We've got a man who's been absolutely brutalized for over a hundred days. His knee was damaged so badly by the batons used to beat him down and force him to the ground that the flesh started to rot and was terribly infected. But they just do a little operation to remove the infected tissue and... suture it right back together. Without a bandage. And then he's forced to his knees over and over, there's mention of the sutures tearing several times, he's forced to use the damaged leg (and able to, albeit with less range of motion) almost immediately... I'm sorry, what?! He's also described as filthy, covered in grime, and yet one quick surgery and some unprotected stitches later it's all good and his leg will heal up with a limp? It doesn't start bleeding or anything!Rho also is raped, mercilessly and brutally, every single day - multiple times each day - for literally months. He isn't bathed. He's shared between many guards. Multiple times, he's described as bleeding from the force of the assaults. But apparently all that warrants is referring to him as being in pain and "raw" because apparently sepsis and swelling and all the gory details of filthy wounds only apply to his leg.Consistency, please! If you're going to go there, you might as well go there and accept the dark, fucked-up thing you're trying to portray. Otherwise, you need to sanitize all of it. I need some consistent ground rules for how biology works in this world, because my brain's going to latch onto the nastiness of that knee wound and make assumptions regardless. Horrifying assumptions which mean Rho shouldn't even have survived.Then, like I said, there's also Miller's motives. At first, he seemed like a purely evil, delusional sociopath who delighted only in the ego trip of breaking strong men. He stood by, ordered the sexual torture of Rho, and patted himself on the back for not partaking in the rape - only overseeing it. He seemed to cling to this as some sort of badge of honour. In fact, he seemed thoroughly convinced that everything happening to Rho was merely a necessary evil in order to prevent further death and destruction during the war by breaking members of the Rebellion and obtaining information.Except, then he wanted Rho to submit to him and only him. He didn't care about breaking Rho as an allegedly necessary part of war; he cared about breaking the "boy" (twenty-four, thankfully; the term is just used to emphasize a power and age gap between them) for himself. He wanted Rho on his knees for him, though he actually had that several times by force and it wasn't good enough so alright, then. He suddenly seemed to think that there actually was a difference between brutally raping and gingerly raping someone. It was no longer about how despicable but necessary the brutality was; he also had his way with Rho, who explicitly said no, while gaslighting both Rho and potentially also himself into thinking it was some, secret desire even though Rho insisted it wasn't. So much for that whole "well at least I don't take pleasure in overseeing it and don't actually do the assaulting" thing, I guess.Once Rho has outlived his importance to the government, instead of letting them execute him, Miller insists on taking him back to HQ to use as an experiment. This, somehow, is granted by his superior officer... and then is performed by just putting a bag over his head, some handcuffs on his wrists, and stuffing him in the passenger seat of a car with Miller and nobody else. Right, then. At this point, maybe the author should reconsider the military angle and just make this a dark, fucked-up, human trafficking thing. At least then all the sexual stuff and Miller suddenly wanting to keep Rho all to himself would make sense...But it doesn't. We're told, by Miller, that Rho wants to be dominated. But we're told, by Rho, that he absolutely does not. The only good thing about Miller - and I use the term 'good' extremely loosely - is that he is gentler in how he assaults Rho. But he still guides others in being brutal and he still, ultimately, unravels a young man's mind until the point that Rho decides he wants to submit and be hurt because he feels safer when he knows his place. Yeeeah, no. That's not romance, honey. That's not even Stockholm syndrome. That's being so broken down by psychological warfare and unending physical torture that he doesn't know what to do with the concept of freedom or autonomy anymore. It isn't sweet or romantic. It isn't heartwarming. It isn't a satisfying ending.But then, even with my personal distaste for it aside, the ending is utterly unsatisfying regardless. Rho finally drops to his (badly injured!) knees for Miller of his own accord, and Miller drops down to his knees beside Rho. Then we get some flowery prose about how Rho got Miller on his knees... The end. Is it a Happy-for-Now ending? Is it a bad ending? Nobody knows! Personally, I prefer to think that Rho was repulsed by Miller continuing to insist on the 'drop to your knees' thing after he'd literally willingly given himself over and regained the good sense to understand he wasn't in love or lust with his abuser... then killed him. Or perhaps even they killed each other. I was so aggravated with how evil and gaslighty Miller was and how unwilling to escape peril when given chances Rho was, that I just couldn't accept the idea of the submission.Then again, I think the middle onward of the book was extremely rushed, regardless. Things are reasonably paced for a while, then suddenly it becomes a mad dash toward the endgame. This shows not only in the pacing, but in the writing quality. Tenses change mid-sentence, a colonel becomes a commander for one sentence, motives become sloppy, typos run rampant, and sections become shorter.It feels as if the author got tired of all the gritty, grimdark stuff and wanted to switch gears but also felt trapped within the scenario. Is this the case? We'll never know; but it definitely is the impression given. Either way, I'm glad it's over. This book lost me at the halfway point, if not sooner, but for some reason I wanted to see it through to the end - perhaps hoping for a satisfying conclusion with revenge or somesuch.For a book clearly written to hit some fucked-up, dark kinks, it didn't even really have any smut in it. There were extremely graphic depictions of sexual acts both nonconsensual and of dubious consent, but none of it actually read like it was even trying to be erotic. It was just there. And were this book not written purely to be a 'porn with minimal plot,' then it would be so highly problematic I wouldn't even know how to list all the reasons.So... where does it fit? I don't know. I'm not sure I care.The character writing isn't bad at all, and despite its flaws I was sucked in and felt I had to know where this went. Hence, two stars instead of one. But I don't think this book really knows what it wants to be. Or if it does, it doesn't quite succeed at the attempt.