Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I want to preface that this review is long-winded and will contain several spoilers, but they bring light some things that I didn't notice mentioned in other reviews nor in the summary of this book and they are kind of major surprises (in a bad way, IMO) and the reason this book is getting a 1 star from me.... First off, our heroine, Ensley is a god-awful person in the beginning and it takes a bit to get past that. She’s so nasty I literally re-read the first two chapters to see if somehow I missed a crucial interaction as to why she was being such a horrible person. I didn't miss anything, the author actually wrote a character like this and expected me to...um...connect with her? Uh. This story opens with a background of the night before; Ensley and her bestie went out partying hard and Ensley woke up hung-over and heading to work. All is well, she seems like a fun person, she's got a friend, so sure, all headed in The-Readers-Can-Connect-And-Enjoy-The-Character direction. Oh gosh. On her walk to work she was abducted by aliens. Queue cruel, snobbish, utterly nasty heroine. She wakes up in a cell with other girls, sees some water and checks the girls out again to see if they look like they have STDs before taking a sip. After sipping some water, Ensley immediately starts trashing the girls about how complacent they are about being abducted (one was chained, another cut deeply down her entire side trying to escape). Ensley ignores their being injured and chained and goes on to bash them, telling them she's better than they are because she's a New Yorker and they are all from other states. The girls obviously don't like that, snap back. A few things said back and forth, the captor green aliens come in and Ensley is like, 'Hey alien captors, I can speak and be polite. I’m from New York. I’m totally not what you are looking for, can I go please?' Obviously not. From there, a bizarre state war is vocally forged. Ensley being the nasty go-getter. She considers all of the other girls hillbillies and thinks the girl from Kentucky is a drug addict. She also says to the girls, and I quote, "My life matters. I mean, look at me and look at all of you. Who's going to miss you from your trashy trailer parks?" At this point the girls are fed from one bowl and they don't want to share with Ensley. She beats the crap out of one of them and decides to become alpha. This is where I went back and re-read. At this point I was terribly confused at where all this hostility and extreme WAY over-the-top snobbish-ness came from. Well. I didn't miss anything. Anyways, finally our hero, here-forth known only as Owner, steps in. Ensley takes one look at him and decides ‘hey he's cute, I'm good with this!’ She disses the girls as she leaves and doesn't care what will become of them. Now on to my second issue, and I'd like to mention up front that I like forced seduction romances. I don't even mind if it's a bit darker than that, depending on the characters and overall feel of the book, ending, etc. This happens to be a forced seduction that I did not like AT ALL. To begin with the descriptions of Ensley are, in my opinion, gross. She's kept clothed and covered until her hair grows in. Then, after her armpit, va-jay-jay and ew, her butt hair grows in her Owner changes her outfit to one that uncovers all of her EXCEPT her private areas so he and the rest of his crew can "pet" her hair. There is one point they are petting her armpit hair. Gag. If Ensley is scared or tries to pull away from any of the hands that are touching her during this she is whipped by her Owner. (Right before/during all of this it comes to light that pets are used sexually and bred). Her Owner, trying to train her sexually, brings in a chick to get Ensley going, then makes her pull away to “train” her into behaving during sex. He then has sex with the woman in front of Ensley. The woman shows up in two scenes in the book. Now. I'm not necessarily saying I hate this, but I totally did in this book. It came out of left field and went farther than I prefer to read with F/F. Her owner, after having joined with her himself by this time, decides to share her with his crew, even the doctor whom Ensley does not like and is not comfortable around. She is forced. She didn't come away happy either. She was a mess, crying, broken, scared, it was not fun to read. He sees she doesn't like it and decides it might not be the best thing for her. A few months later Ensley is pregnant. Heavily pregnant. Owner decides she needs to have another around with the boys. Ensley is scared and worried about the baby and doesn't want this to happen. Owner says it's fine, they won't make her take it from behind, it's fine. WOW. I didn't feel like the characters ever connected in their relationship and it made the sex scenes painful to read, the forced group sex even worse. My third and final reason for this book dropping to a 1 star review.... So farther on now, Ensley kind of wiggled her way into my "I care what happens to you, I'm sorry you are treated this way, I forgive you," feelings. She's super pregnant, starts with her labor right after a traumatizing second group sex and gives birth to a baby boy. The second the baby comes out she is in love and has natural mother instincts. Owner repeatedly takes the baby from her because he says she is going to hurt the baby. I'm SUPER annoyed at this point, I had a nurse tell me every time she popped into my hospital room that I needed to set my child down because "she needs to learn to rest by herself." I wanted Ensley to punch her Owner in his stupid grey face!!! Time goes on, Ensley is in love with the baby, the crew loves the baby, it seems okay. Owner one day tells Ensley they'll be meeting up with a civilian ship soon. Ensley couldn't care less, she's busy cuddling her baby and enjoying her days as best she can. Civilian ship shows up. Ensley realizes they are taking her baby. She takes the baby, runs, baby is dragged out of her arms, she's screaming, begging, crying. It was horrible to read. I mean, I had to take a break and pull myself together. I wasn’t ready to read about this, I didn’t expect things to go this way. I’ve witnessed something very similar and had many fears and nightmares around this happening. The ONLY reason I came back to reading at this point is because I was hoping Owner would be a decent being and protect her and her baby. Nope. She's held back by the crew, screaming and crying, and Owner is upset because she “seems so emotional,” almost like their own women fighting for their child. But wait, that can't be - she's just a pet and not advanced enough to care about her spawn. (Even when he decides she is advanced enough to care it doesn't change his mind). In the weeks that follow she's desolate and crying all the time and he doesn't understand why she isn't okay with the knowledge "the baby will be okay, he's raised by my people and won't ever know the shame of being the son of a pet." He then goes on to tell himself his son will not hold it against him that he took him away from his mother, after all, he kept him safe from her barbaric traits, his son will only have her clean genes. WOW!!! He then meets up with a pet trainer and some other Owners trying to get some answers for why Ensley is acting the way she is and he’s told he’s not being strict enough by the pet expert. The other owner he chats with tells him it takes time for the women to be okay with the babies being taken away. He’s owned his pet for 10 years and she had trouble letting go of the babies in the beginning too. It made me nauseous how callously they spoke. Time passes and I realize the baby is NOT coming back anytime soon and I almost stopped reading again. However, I still have a bit of hope, things are coming to light that maybe humans can't be pets. Good news, right? NOPE!!! Instead they'll be sold as slaves. Owner considers selling Ensley to slavers, making sure she has a good home though, but then decides maybe he can take her to Earth. She's happy to go back home and doesn't really care much about leaving him other than a ‘I’ll miss you, here’s a kiss. Thank god I’m home.’ (NO DUH!!!) Two years after getting back to Earth Owner shows up with her son. It seems like the author was trying to get a HEA ending, but with the lack of a love connection and the fact that it took TWO YEARS for her to get her son back...it was just super sad. Now. On to the reason that I posted this review instead of going on to the next book without ratings or comment. This author has a note that some of her material might "shock." Hmm. Non-human aliens maybe? Exciting. Since this didn't have any trigger warnings or "dark romances" warnings I was NOT expecting what this book was going to look like. “Too terrible to mention” in the summary of this book could be some kinky sex (which I was expecting, but not forced gang rapes with no sense of healing/connection/zip ). I didn't assume "shock" and “too terrible” meant a dark theme because usually that is written in the blurb to notify people. I don't usually read dark romance because it's not my thing, I like HEA. I can be happy with HEA on a lot of different levels with a lot of different types of relationships, but this just wasn’t a HEA ending or relationship in any sense for me.