"Magical realism" descends into rape
936087
Okay, she's a brilliantly descriptive writer. But I felt jerked off when the magical journey suddenly exploded into ugliness, rape, and dropout stupidity. Not my kind of book.
1623628
Serena James is the owner of the successful Fantasy Incorp., an organization constructed for ordinary people who couldn't obtain the opportunity to fulfill their long time dreams. Serena would be willing to do all in her power to satisfy her clients, as long as it wasn't anything inappropriate.

However in her case, Serena wasn't satisfied to appease everyone else's thirst for adventure without taking part in one of her own. Unfortunately her fantasy was completely inappropriate with today's standards regarding Women's Liberal Rights. And it wasn't as though there were any obvious advertisements in the classified section of the local papers, stating "Sex Slave Wanted!!"

Where and who in the world would Serena be able to  surrender to a dominate, exquisitely charming, deviant, hmmm?

Opportunity knocks for Damon Roche (Sweet Surrender), for he is in search of a woman who will relinquish absolute control to him, withstanding his demonstrative carnal cravings, his sweet seductive endearments, and come to the realization that as much he is in dire need of her salvation, she will be his as well.

If BDSM doesn't interest you, this series is not for you, because it's HARD CORE. There were moments I was flabbergasted of how much Serena could withstand. Damon was very clear and concise with the terms of their arrangement. If Serena felt unsafe, and frightened to continue, the magic word would end it all (NO!!)

But within the realm of ROMANCE pushing the nonexistent envelope and extending its boundaries is what INTRIGUES us the most. Even though committing a few sins within the process, yet to reveal the PERILOUS PASSIONATE CRAVINGS the hero & heroine possess for one another as no other has done before, is TRULY MAGICAL & BEAUTIFUL... And does truly exist within the pages of this GROUND-BREAKING CONTROVERSIAL NOVEL!!

WELL DONE MS. BANKS ANOTHER EYE-OPENER WITHIN THE VOLUPTUOUS WANTON DIMENSION. THIS NOVEL DESERVES WELL BEYOND A 5 STAR RATING!

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652083
Let me start by saying the predictable reviewer opener Im a huge fan of this series and of the authors. And Im a huge fan of erotic romance, contemporary romance and rom-com. When my reading passions mix, it can be an utterly magical reading experience to the point that I want to crawl into the book and visit with my new-found tribe while we ride unicorns down a rainbow into a glimmering sunset or it can be like I stepped out of my comfy car and into something stinky, yucky, squishy, icky and I cant get it off the bottom of said shoes even with all the handwipes in the world.
Now with those images in your head, lets talk about the book. The Varlet and the Voyeur (Rugby Book 4) by Penny Reid & L.H. Cosway is a contemporary sports romance/rom-com at its core with a bit of eroticism as the subject matter that when brought to light brings the hero and heroine together. Whats the eroticism you ask????? Voyeurism. Yep and this is where I have my druthers about the book. The book sets up the hero (William) as being publicly scandalized in a rag magazine wherein a prostitute made up a story about the hero hiring two prostitutes and then watching them be together. The shocker is that the story with the prostitutes is untrue but the voyeurism isnt. So for most of the book, the outside world demonizes him as a pervert and as a result he needs a babysitter to keep him on the straight and narrow thus enters the heroine (Josey). As with any book in this genre, eventually the two will come to their senses, roommates to lovers and a HEA takes place, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy..but
As someone with a fairly open mind, I felt that the vilification of the hero for something so minor on the scale of what is/was considered sexually taboo; that to me the story was a bit unbalanced. At times it was the hero standing alone in defense of his proclivity and explaining how it was safe, sane and consensual. I mean aren't sex clubs set up for voyeurs *wink* but seriously, William would ad nauseum explain that it was like a live porno but unlike a porno, no one was forced or coerced into anything. In my opinion there are much more sexual extremes out there than voyeurism and to make it the big bad of the story just felt wrong. Id almost rather the book be just about the rugby story than have the kink vilified the way it was in the book.
I guess what Im saying is that even though theres a romance in here with a very odd heroine, the fact that so much emphasis was put on a very (frankly) vanilla act to the point that the hero had to have a live-in babysitter because he couldn't be trusted in polite society threw me out of the story. I felt so sorry for the hero that even the quirkiness of the heroine (which did get very annoying) couldn't bring me to a satisfying conclusion to the book. I got the squishy, icky feeling rather than the warm fuzzies.
Whether it was the strange and silent hero, the quirky spoiled princess with the tiny dog that has verbal diarrhea and is the only one who understands him or the vilification of the simple act of voyeurism or simply just the story itself? I don't know but I do know that this story just missed the mark for me. Maybe you can view it from a different angle *total pun intended*
539561
This book contains graphic descriptions of rape and explicit consensual sexual content.  I barely made it about halfway through before I HAD to stop reading.  I wish I hadn't read what I did, no matter the interesting plot and engaging characters.
1750666
This book came out of a discussion on Truant's podcast "Better off Undead" about how you don't need to do research about a western if you just add in a unicorn instead of a horse.  Because then everyone will know it's an alternate universe.  I chuckled, and after reading Fat Vampire (go check it out) promptly downloaded this.

I read this book as a hyperbolic satire.  I'm not entirely sure that Truant was going for the satire angle, but I'm always ready to ridicule society.  This is over the top, and absolutely insane.  I'd definitely give it a read.
4390585
All grammar and spelling errors aside, I had to stop reading the content when the brutal and graphic rape scene played out. I don't find detailing the events of a violent rape as they happen a tasteful experience at all. In fact, I feel such expressions are a desperate grasp by inexperienced writers, or a writer inexperienced at life, to be able to tell a story without desperate grabs at being different. If you want to be different, try to share a story without resorting to sharing acts of violent rape. Emotions, villian visualizations, etc, ARE acceptable, but spelling out the actual act as it happens, including the biting off of a nipple, is a tasteless and insensitive attempt to bring a flat story to life.

I felt dirty, and violated, and abused. I WILL NOT be reading anything by this author EVER again!
370850
This book gets two stars for a potentially interesting magic system. The first few chapters were an interesting setup for a potentially enjoyable story. Unfortunately the interaction between student and teacher was unrealistic for this culture and time period, and the relationships were not developed enough to make a romance between these two believable. By the time the plot devolved into the gruesome, rather psychedelic weirdness of Ceony being trapped inside the magician's heart, I gave up reading the book and just skimmed a page here and there, basically skipping over the majority of each chapter until I finished the book. It's really a shame the author didn't come up with a more interesting plot surrounding the use of her magic system. I'm stunned that this book has so many good reviews.
667909
I have read several other novels by Anna Campbell, and enjoyed them.  I assumed that other reviewers who characterized this book as including rape must be more sensitive than I am, because I trusted that she would never make sexual violence a central component of the main relationship.  I was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  Please, please, please don't buy this book.  Please don't allow this kind of sexual violence masquerading as complicated obsession have your money or your time.  This story is not about love.  It is not an interesting challenge to conservative sexual mores, or sexual repression.  It is an idealisation of rape.  It is a romantisisation of rape.  The supposed hero rapes the heroine over and over again.  Night after night.  Supposedly, since the heroine sometimes experiences some sexual pleasure during these rapes, that means she really does want the sex inflicted on her.  I cannot believe that Avon, a company built by women, for women, would publish such an ugly lie.  So many women have fought so hard to teach our community that this kind of idea is awful and false.  I am so ashamed of myself that I ignored other reviewers and paid money for this book.  I am horrified that I tacitly provided support for the idea that a woman who says she doesn't want sex is lying, either to her rapist or to herself.  I read romance and erotic novels because I love joyous sex, and I love intimate relationships that involve the flourishing of both partners.  This novel has left me shaken, miserable, and unable to sleep.  If you've ever been a victim of sexual violence or loved someone who has been victimised, this book will almost certainly re-traumatise you.  These awful consequences are easily avoided - turn your back on this novel!
4332090
This...this was a very uncomfortable book to read. I wanted to like it, but it was painfully unrealistic and the whole message was borderline antifeminist. A town that attracts tourists (but not law enforcement?) for its annual celebration of three sisters who were drowned as witches also has at least three drownings of young men every year. These sisters, who were sexually liberated and maybe witches, return to possess local girls to wreak their vengeance. Penny, a local girl with some uncanny talents of her own, has no desire to stop or understand what's happening, and only shakes off her inertia when a boy she personally likes is threatened.

I *could* have believed this. If the author had focused on some kind of supernatural guilt or curse element that kept the townsfolk there, it would have been better: why else would you stay in a town where boys drown and girls are possessed if you had children? And I *could* have believed Penny's depressed indifference if the author spent more time reflecting on how humans can get used to almost anything, including annual supernatural terror. But the whole thing was so slapdash and showed no understanding of psychology that it seemed like people were doing things basically at random.

Girls are kidnapped on the suspicion of being possessed, and nobody does anything. Girls are tied up and held again their will by men who demonstrate a distinct lack of understanding of consent in other circumstances, and nobody does anything. An entire town is held hostage by their fears of women who are too sexy, and nobody learns any lessons from that, not about feminism, not about compassion, not about temperance. Not one person thinks to say to any of the ghosts, "hey, we're sorry for what our ancestors did, what can we do to appease you?" I'm not saying that should work, but nobody even asks? Two hundred years and still nobody takes these women seriously?

And then, the reason for giving it one star:

"'No one else has to die.'
'Except three innocent girls.'
'Better than a hundred more boys.'"

Look, I get that the author is talking about weighing three lives against a hundred. But the fact that it's gendered and the fact that it's a man who's deciding to slaughter three possessed women--that's not okay. I don't understand how this got to press. This is horrible.

And then the twist was not much of a twist, and the whole thing left me feeling pretty sour. I finished it to see if it would make good on some of these inadequacies, but it didn't.

If you want magic bakeries and curses and wonder, read The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender and skip The Wicked Deep. If you want a story of vengeful women and supernatural triumph, read The Price Guide to the Occult. Basically, just skip this and read Leslye Walton.
4547803
*Gifs not previewed on off site reviews*

WTF?
I actually had a hope for this one, I kept my eye on it.
And then I actually read it. Reading it was like this:

Like..what just happened?
I was reading and reading and reading and I just kept.

Caution: Spoilers Ahead.
I don't even know where to start. How about her cultural appropriation of Native American.everything? (clothing, etc. chopping out bits and pieces.) The fact that she thinks herbs have magical properties? (Not like the, omg-I-have-a-cold-and-mint-helps-me-breathe-again magic. Like the, I-can-hex-people-to-death-and-maim-them kind of thing.)
How about when she resurrects a bird with blood and herbs? Creepy? Yes. Convincing? No. Its lame. I kept rolling my eyes and hopping it was over.
I get having a difficult relationship with mothers. I have one of those relationships.
But this is totally psychotic. How about when she believes her mother has cursed her and ripped out her heart?
How about when her mother buried it in the dirt, grew poppies from it, and then drugged her daughter with the opium?
Not only does she believe it, but her mother and her mothers best friend believes it too.
Like WTF is even going on?!
Its not even a degenerative psychosis. She tells people about the magic and people just respond like oh, ok. And they don't even do anything. They don't try to get her help, or try to talk to her to reason what exactly is going on. Everything was taken at face-value. Like if someone walked up to me and asked if I had someone in my life Id like to black-magic-hex. Id say, get away from me, you creeper.
I don't know.
How about when she mentions that years ago, she killed her brother while he was in the womb, and then they went to the river and buried his body by hand?
How about when shes raped, and instead of going to the police, she curses him, and then he ends up in the hospital. (later a rumor goes around that the car accident has left him impotent.) But really? Later her mother reveals that she cast a binding spell on her, so her spell against the boy didn't work. It was just coincidence.
Wut?

So. What was the point again?
This whole thing was off its rocker. Not only is the premise half-baked, but its also written in forced complicated prose. It reminds me of a toddler wearing moms high heels. Or like if a lawyer showed up to court in a cheer leaders outfit and then pretended everything was normal.
The whole thing was just disturbing and not in a Im-rethinking-the-meaning-of-life kind of way. Just in a why-does-crap-like-this-get-published kind of way.
There aren't any character arcs. Heck, there aren't any real story-arcs here either. Nothing is accomplished or learned. Im seriously disappointed! When My Heart Was Wicked was one of my top anticipated reads of 2015. ugh.
Just skip it. Seriously, this one is a complete waste of time
945985
Sci fi rape fantasy where the heroine is trained as a sex toy and to like it. Derogatory dirty talk made me wince. Silly ideas that males can't be taken as sex slaves and getting an Earth apple from a food simulator that is red made this less believable. There are thousands of apples on Earth and come in more than one color! The writing was good at getting horror across but not other emotions. The happy ending fell flat.

Mature content
4019845
Spoiler alert:

This book was so intriguing, with such unique and well-developed characters and I quickly grew very invested in the story which made it so jarringly shocking and painful when the main character is violently raped.  I don't understand why the author felt that this was necessary to the story line.  When I read a fantasy novel, I'm certainly not expecting to experience such a visceral and graphic rape scene.  I'm not particularly sensitive to violence in stories, but the way in which the author took us more than half way through the book, gaining our trust as readers and then slapped us with a horrific rape scene made me entirely unable to read the rest of the story.  She lost my trust as a reader.  The scene was branded into my brain and I couldn't shake it for hours afterward.  It haunted me in a horrible way.  I couldn't read any more of the story, not even to see if there was some resolution.  I quickly deleted the book from my kindle and went onto Amazon and wiped it from my account.
4722514
According to Gene Wolfe, author of "The Wizard": "Do you like Werewolves? Vampires? Talk radio? Reading? Sex? If the answer to any of these is YES, you're in for a wonderful ride."

Allow me to disillusion you right now. There is no sex in this book, no romance.  There is only lust and rape. Our main character is repeatedly raped in this novel. I don't know about anyone else, but I feel no romantic rush from seeing the main character raped. Keeping this in mind, she's all over another character at one point in the story, providing a small glimmer of contrived romance, but nothing happens. This is a good thing, since this character previously tried to KILL HER. Unfortunately, according to many people's sense of logic, this means that there's OBVIOUSLY some chemistry between them. This disappointed me, because there were early indicators showing us that the author wasn't going to follow that incredibly unrealistic and cliched path. I also find it hard to believe that a survivor of multiple rapes is eager to jump in the sack with a virtual stranger.

Overall, it was an interesting read, delving into the gritty rules and politics of pack life in this world. There is visible character growth in Kitty, which is something I always appreciate in a good book. In some aspects, this novel is like so many others of the genre, while in others, it is definitely unique. If you are familiar with the genre, you will recognize which is which.

I choose not embellish further for fear of giving away more than I already have, but I do want the reader to be aware of what isn't in this book: sex and romance.

I give it a three, because it is a page-turner, but it is lacking in some character credibility.
4320846
Jumbo mambo. Fantasy. Definitekly not reality. Very difficult to finish reading.
4224982
Jeremy Robert Johnson is a Disinfo agent. He wants us all to accept that the world of the Vakhtang, Face-rec masks, the mission, primates with expanding jaws, super-stimulant Hex, scarab beetles that pierce chests in order to remove GPS trackers in the afterlife, Buddy with his brain in a box is just a work of fiction. So I will write a review about this work of fiction and proceed as if it's something other than the stone cold, hard won truth of our shambling Frankenstein's Monster we call Reality.

At one time asleep, S.P. Doyle is snapped to the waking trance of a powerful street drug known as 'Hex', named such because it ruins everything. This black market cabinet of curiosities creates ghoulish side effects for users, including tardive dyskinesia, xerostomia, severe genital engorgement, double chronic masturbation (chronic chronic), tachycardia, arrhythmia, hypertension, hyperreflexia, more masturbation, eidetic imagery and hallucination of canis lupus (i.e. 'There's a giant wolf behind me, isn't there? No? I just heard him growl! Is he still behind me!?') In the event that too much is ingested at once, the eyes liquefy.

Disenfranchised at work, Doyle decides to expose the crooked, unethical practices of his employers and finds the stakes in his drug fueled crusade continuously raised. F*** IT! WHY NOT? becomes his mantra as he ventures farther out on the cusp of absolute existential ruin. He meets his match with super-primates with ever expanding mandibles and is rescued in the nick of time from becoming the conduit of a clandestine endgame courtesy of the Vakhtang. After he is purged by 'debugging' scarabs, he learns to navigate an entire new chessboard as the Vakhtang put Doyle's own mother into play to lure him out of hiding. He is befriended by covert paragons of virtue Ms. A and Dara, who have their own mantra that outweighs Doyle's 'F*** IT, WHY NOT': They ruin everything. And after coming to know Dara, after having his mother and pet turtle threatened, he cannot let them ruin any more.

Jeremy Robert Johnson juggles a panoply of characters here from the nihilistic-but-hopeful Superfriend team of Doyle, Dara and Ms. A to a conspiracy theorist who actually has the forethought to make a 3-D printer using a 3-D printer when they are outlawed in this bleak future and a Nazi war criminal who has sidestepped punishment due to his standing with the Vakhtang and his agreement with our government as part of Operation Paperclip. We even see shout outs to characters from Johnson's previous works through the mainline of Eraserhead Press with Buddy from League of Zeroes, whose actions late in the book actually gave me that 'f*** yeah' feeling where I had to throw my hands in the air and high five someone who wasn't there.

I used to loathe five year cycles of anticipation for new projects from my favorites, be they musicians such as Tool or NIN or authors such as Johnson or Clive Barker. Now, I realize the wait is a fair trade off in order for us to enjoy such masterpieces as Skullcrack City, Everville, 10,000 Days and The Fragile. Yes, Bizarro has indeed found its Everville while refreshingly devoid of Lix. Also, Johnson's favorite word must be ovipositor along with anything else that falls between the squiggly lines of parasitology and pharmacology. Skullcrack City is an excursion that begins with cryptopolitical maneuvering and ends up a Body Horror Beowulf scribbled in rolling papers recycled from a love letter to Fatalism.

Jeremy Robert Johnson always knows just when to bounce, be it dialogue, narrative or symbolism. You will not be disappointed, unless it's just over your head.
267554
"Story of O" is an erotic tale about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer intent on giving herself completely to her lover as a slave. O consents to spend two weeks at Roissey, which is a training facility that teaches women how to become completely submissive to their masters and other male members of this exclusive "club." O is constantly whipped and flogged, chained to her bed every night, and practically gang-raped by the men at Roissey. However, although the violent sexual descriptions make O's experiences seem like rape, she actually consents to everything that happens to her, including transforming her entire life after leaving Roissey and making herself available to all the other male club members whenever they request her.

I did not enjoy this novel at all. O is completely submissive, both physically and psychologically, and she doesn't have to be. She takes no pleasure from these sadistic encounters: The only thing that pleases her is when she receives affection from her lover, Rene. The author of the book makes a point of having the male characters ask for O's consent over and over again, and she continuously gives it to them. I do not understand it, and I certainly cannot sympathize with O because of it. Also, the violent and sexual descriptions in this novel are very extreme even for my taste...and I'm certainly no prude!

Overall, this is a horrendous example of the lengths some women will go to in order to please a man. I guarantee that it will disturb everyone who reads it.
3485296
In these sketches, McEwan examines sexual and relationship dysfunctions.  Each story has a bizarre twist-- which the characters never seem to recognize as strange-- that is used to emphasize the futility of human emotion.  The effect is similar to "magical realism," where an author uses supernatural elements but treats them as commonplace.  Here are a few examples:
"Tales of a Kept Ape" is told in first-person, through the eyes of a frustrated lover who cannot understand why the woman he adores has alienated herself from his affections.  Bizarre twist:  The jilted lover is a pet ape the woman has been sleeping with.
In the title story, a middle aged divorced father worries that his fourteen year old daughter has fallen into a lesbian relationship with an older woman.  Bizarre twist:  The older woman is a three-foot dwarf.
In "Dead as They Come", we watch an obsessive, arrogant millionaire fall madly in love with a woman, only to destroy the relationship out of uncontrollable jealousy.  Bizarre twist:  The woman is a department store mannequin.
My complaint of these stories is that the bizarre "twists" are never explicitly dealt with by the characters.  It's as if McEwan wants us to believe that loving an ape, or a dwarf, or a mannequin  is no less strange (or less hopeless) than loving another human being.  So, each tale becomes a plodding, why-can't-we-get-along diatribe that is neither interesting nor enlightening.