Leigha's Little Library

***Trigger warning: Rape is mentioned, along with the person being tortured, there were two attempted rape scenes, one quite graphic and incest. I am sorry if you think these are spoilers, but I rather spoil someone than have someone be triggered.***

Repeated phrases, telling, not showing, treatment of woman, misogyny, mention of rape & torture and 2 attempted rapes, one pretty graphic & incest: these are some of the things that make me not enjoy the book as much, some more on an annoyance level and others quite a bit more serious.

The author needs a better editing team. If Jonas feels his temper flaring one more time, I'm going to scream, and just how many times can a person flash a smile, or flash their eyes in anger, flash this, flash that....? "For a surreal moment" is also used many times. Once you notice the repetitiveness, it is almost impossible not to notice, which brings you out of the story. Most of the scenes are written through telling and hardly any showing, which is dull.

Too many characters. I gave up trying to keep track of them. 99% were not important, just written in to be killed.

I like how Masao treats Jonas as a true son and not a son-in-law. They have a couple sweet father-son moments. The actions scenes were suspenseful. I truly felt Terry's terror as she goes through the stuff she went through. There are a couple characters I hated so much and admit, I was hoping they would die, so Steve Alten is good at writing characters you hate.

I do plan on reading more, but I don't think this one is going to go down as one of my most liked.