SA to "love" (Beautiful Fiend) TW/CW SA + spoilers
Not sure if this is the right tag but it's the closest.
I've just finished Beautiful Fiend by Lola King and I have so many things to say and not a lot of them are good. I finished it because - Well in all honestly I'm not quite sure. It was pretty repetitive and it is one of the books that makes me so irrationally angry.
Billie as a character, with the way he traumatized her and how she responded to that is "fine". I'm pretty familiar with trauma responses and and how they can present themselves and I won't judge a character for that.
What makes me fucking angry is the fact that the book literally starts with Caden RAPING Billie with the help of his fucker friends, blackmails her to do his illegal shit, continues to SA her and she proceeds to "fall in love" with him.
I understand DR and SA/ CNC / Dub-con / etc. can be part of that, but I fucking hate how this book tries to twist their relationship into something it is not and could never be. I love DR, but IMO, even in a book, someone cannot fall in love with the person who violated them in that way (and continues to do so).
Not to mention Caden's absolute double standards about Billie being SA'd by anyone but him, his own disgust with selling his body and allowing himself to be SA'd for her freedom. I do not care he sacrifices his own freedom for her's, I do not care he's obsessed with her. I do not care he saves her from being SA'd by someone else.
For this book to actually have worked, both characters should have grown in a way, and neither did. I have so many more things to say but I'm not sure how to put it into words.
Anyhow, I'm now cleansing my ears with Sick Boys by Clarissa Wild and >!the FMC has stabbed one of the MMC's TWICE and I'm only a little over 2 hours in. I think I'm really going to like this one.!<
>!Edit: I just listened to two more minutes and while the FMC's just stabbed that one guy for the second time, she escaped by PULLING THE FIRE ALARM. I love this girl !<