Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have high standards for books. If I follow an author, they have earned my admiration through excellent writing and character development. There is absolutely no reason why romance, dark romance, or fantasy can't have the same exacting standards as any other genre. We fans have got to stop settling, and urge authors on to excellence. From what I've read, this author is capable of better than this. What follows are a few issues that jumped out at me. Frankly, I'm struggling to even finish the book. After portraying Christians and Southerners as racist bigots, and the military as controlled by maniacs eagerly employing friendly fire on their own, selling soldiers to mad scientists and human traffickers, the author then proceeds to fantasize about women getting violently gang raped every day of their lives. The author needs to look in the mirror at her own prejudice and flaws. It defies belief that any particular military commander could wipe out his own forces with friendly fire to start a war, depending on vast numbers of people to remain silent. There are regularly court marshals as bad behavior comes to light. This level of malfeasance would not go unnoticed. The author gave no explanation as to how the military would have run a human trafficking and murder scheme. It devolved more into a military = bad cliche, where the only good military appear to be ex-military. The villains are portrayed as two dimensional black hats. There was no explanation given as of yet how such a human experimentation scheme was funded. The amount of money for armed military helicopters, labs, equipment, arms, land...it would be hundreds of millions of dollars. How would these maniacs have financed this, just to produce enslaved enhanced mercenaries to sell overseas? At least one person, Hal, says he's just trying to make a living. He called the authorities and they just ignored. All law enforcement just...ignored a phone call about sexual abuse. Riiiiiight. So now all law enforcement are callous incompetents, too. For these demonic abusers to get away with it as long as they did would require the silence and participation of each and every person working there, from the janitor to the cooks. But there is no mention of why any of them kept silent, let alone how they managed to find sociopaths to fill most of the positions. How did the employment interview go? At first, Tex is described as some sort of bestial hulk with lupine features, and glowing eyes. But those differences promptly seemed to disappear. All that's mentioned later is Lethal's eyes going black, and his canines are a bit more noticeable. None of the characters have their own syntax and speech patterns. They all sound like the author. The test subjects went from being so animalistic that they could barely grunt out a few words, to suddenly talking like a woman. Law went from the lab, to forming committees, boards, and monologues with phrases such as, "I've made a list of items that I feel should be addressed initially." Excuse me, what??? They were given some sort of experimental drug that spliced their genes with other species, or altered their genetic code. Directed mutations. They lost their humanity and most of their communication skills. But setting foot on the Alliance Ranch somehow turned them into wordy bureaucrats? Even when they returned to their human form in their cells, they weren't back to normal. I guess a change of scenery was all they needed? Acker sounds nothing remotely resembling a real biker. The author just threw a bunch of tattoos on a someone straight out of Pleasantville and pretended he's a biker. None of these super soldiers have ever heard of taking fingerprints at a crime scene, preserving forensic evidence, nor could they figure out how to block the injectors in their controlling collars in all the time they were released on missions. All you have to do is cover the air gun and the collar would have been useless. Or remove the battery. Or kill the guy with access to the button. Then they could have torn the collars off. The most jarring, discordant plot device, however, was the women. The author described abuse so violent, savage, and ongoing, that it would have killed someone. Women can be raped to death within a day. I actually met someone with PTSD from listening to a woman get gang raped to death by an opposing army in the Middle East. If an author introduces sexual assault, she owes it to victims to accurately portray long term consequences they have to overcome, which is more important than describing any individual occurrence. What the author described would have caused internal bleeding, hemorrhage, tearing. These men were 7 feet tall, like bodybuilders on steroids, drugged out of their mind to violence. Why would the evil doctor only provide one poor woman per 5 males? They would just kill them every time. Victims who have suffered a fraction of this abuse are incontinent. They develop fistulas that drip fecal matter and urine, and terrible internal infections. They can't sit down, or walk, let alone hop up on an exam table. What Nina suffered would have killed her long before she was rescued at 18 months. Her teeth would have been broken. She would have choked. Her windpipe would have swollen. This is by no means a comprehensive list of the damage poor Nina would have received. A "clinic" with a simple exam would not have been capable of fixing that damage. She would need reconstructive surgery. Before One got her, she suffered a dislocated elbow. But in the 18 months after she was thrown to the maniacs, all she's got are scars and some infected scratches. The author acts like the doctor would just give her a quick glance to make sure she's OK. That's totally not realistic, and reduces her suffering to a simple plot device or fantasy. And then, the author made it even worse. After Nina has suffered abuse that should the killed her, and would likely have left her a bleeding lump of raw meat. And yet, the moment she arrives at Alliance, Acker claims her. She doesn't ask for him. Doesn't plead with him not to leave her. He claims her as his girl, and refuses to leave, so the nurse caring for battered women says, sure! She gets him a cot so he can sleep right beside her, and shuts the door, leaving them alone. Then days later, the general and his assistant happily make plans to get Acker and Nina their own apartment so they can set up house together. It's glaringly obvious that the author didn't take 30 seconds researching battered women shelters, rape counselors, or any other profession to find out how they would care for severely abused women. There is no way on this Earth that any reputable rape treatment center would encourage a strange man to claim a rape victim, and then enable him to set up house with her. He's portrayed himself as necessary for her protection. Acker seems like a nice character, but it's a douchebag move. It would have been far sweeter had she discovered him sleeping outside to ensure no one bothered her, and then slowly gained her trust. Instead, the most abused woman on Earth immediately glommed on to him with instant trust. Acker puts his arm around the little woman, and grins while talking about their upcoming suburban life together. So far at least, the author never addresses pregnancy or STDs. Were the women on birth control? None of the women express any concern about pregnancy from their ordeal. Due to the way this hell hole was managed, every single individual there, from the subjects, the women, and every worker there would have a variety of STDs. At this point, I'm about full up on beast men discussing quorums and committees like bureaucrats, and setting up house with battered rape victims who miraculously suffer no ill effects other than shyness. I'm not sure if I can slog through the rest of this book. I think this author has the talent and ability to do much better than this. Update: I did read more of this, to see if it would improve. Acker decided to murder Nina's abusive ex. Apparently, he could not figure out how to do this without taking a helicopter, and his crew, deliberately doing so with an incoming hurricane to "cover their approach." People unfortunately murder each other every day, and they don't need a helicopter or a hurricane to do so. Can't Acker take a road trip, for instance? When he does locate Nina's house, he finds a box hidden with her things, and LEAVES THEM STREWN INSIDE THE HOUSE. Stealth commando, Acker is not. It's hard to respect this character's supposed military credentials when he acts like such an idiot. The pilot also cannot figure out what to do when Acker refuses to return. This isn't Afghanistan, and the only way to get Acker out without him getting snuffed. He could have hung out for a while, which should have been their backup plan. And THEN, Nina decides to embark on a bootcamp fitness plan for assassins. She runs a track that took the "side by side (?)" 20 minutes to drive. So, if the guy drove only 5 mph, that's 1 2/3 miles. He probably drove faster than that. But let's stick with 1 2/3 miles for the sake of argument. She ran that 5 times at a fast clip. In her head, she thought she was able to do that because she used to run up and down the aisle of the prison cells. Except...that was 2 years ago when she was briefly with One. Before that, she was in a holding cell with the other kidnapped women. After that, she was brutalized, and she sure as heck wasn't out jogging. So...running up and down an aisle for a couple of months led to fitness she retained 2 years later, so she could suddenly run over 8 miles all of a sudden? And THEN she had to swim laps in an Olympic sized pool, holding her breath the entire way under water. UGH!!! Why do readers give this a pass? The author has potential, but they can't grow without feedback and a better editor.