Mittwoch, 3. August 2016

Review: Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat




“It was like watching a man smile as he surrendered himself to drown in deep water.”

“A golden prince was easy to love if you did not have to watch him picking wings off flies.”


Plot:

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the truthful heir to the throne of Akielos, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative and deadly, his new master Prince Laurent epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else...


My opinion:

I SHIP THESE TWO SO MUCH. I AM ALL THE SHIPS. ALL OF THEM.

As you may be able to tell from the rating, I liked this book. A lot. I was expecting to like it going into it, despite all the controversy, and I was not disappointed to say the least.

I understand why people don't like this book, and why they think it's very problematic. I agree, some scenes really ARE problematic. People say this book glorifies rape and sex slavery, and thus they can't enjoy a book like that. However, I didn't see it that way. There is a reason why the Prince of the kingdom these things take place in doesn't participate in any of it. Do you think that's because he approves of it? Probably not. He rejects it, and because he is not the one who is ruling yet, he can't do a lot of other things about it, other than just not participating. Same with the main character Damen. He despises it, says numerous times how he is disgusted by some of these practices. These scenes were there not to glorify this, it was just part of the world building. Those scenes were written in order to understand the world they live in and the system they have. So, it wasn't that disturbing for me. Again, I do not say that things should be this way, not at all. But i understand and accept why the author did it.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the characters. I loved them, although there are like 0 women in the story. I have never read anything quite like this before, and it was definitely interesting to explore. Laurent is an interesting character and I really can't wait to see how he will develop. All the other characters were, even though the book was just 240 pages long, well described and developed, which I loved. But what I loved the most was definitely the chemistry between Laurent and Damen (OTP – status right there). Laurent, the dismissive, passive Prince, and Damen, the one who gets thrown into this whole new world and tries to cope with everything surrounding him. If that doesn’t seem like a great match, I don’t know what does. I hope all my feels will somehow get satisfied in the next books though.
Furthermore, I liked the story and how the plot unfolded in the last few pages, and I am definitely interested to see where this story will go.
What more can I say, other than I really like this book.

My version also had an extra short story at the end called "The Training of Erasmus", so I will talk a little bit about this story too.
It tells the story of Erasmus who is trained to be a slave in Damen’s kingdom, but then gets shipped to Vere.
This story again gives us insight on how this whole system works, and it again was (in my opinion) important for the overall world building and plot. You understand that whole slave-system better when reading the story, which is important. Erasmus is a great character and I really loved seeing how he came to be in Vere in the first place. In fact, I think this should always be part oft he main book, as it answers some more questions concerning the kingdom they live in.


Rating:

4,5/5 (and a lot of hope for the next two books)

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