Reviews with content warning for Rape - Silk & Steel

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

unicorn91's review

adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I really love both of the main characters. I like that its multi pov, and that the series has a happy ending. reason for two stars. this book has actual sexual assault on page to one of the main characters. the two main characters are always getting separated and I felt like lysander could never catch a break. i picked it up because my kindle recommended it after captive prince. in my opinion, the two are nothing alike

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freckles_13's review

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emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I’m really unsure how I feel about this book.
It took me a while to warm up to both of them, but I feel like Lysander is the better character since he seems to be more morally grey, and he has such mixed feelings. Eroan seemed okay but felt one dimensional to me.
It only got really good around the 80% mark, but I’ll still read the sequel to see where it goes.

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samijobrooker's review

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dark slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

0.5

This was a laughably bad book. It contained a lot of graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault, and I would say it was gratuitous except that the cornerstones of the dragonkin society's personal and political hierarchies appeared to be incest and sexual violence. So I guess it was crucial world-building.

The two romantic lead characters were fine but not all that interesting, and their relationship felt hollow all throughout the book.

For large portions of the story, at least one of them — often both — erroneously believes the other to be dead. And this happens multiple distinct times. It's like it's looping through the end of Romeo and Juliet over and over again. Absolutely baffling creative choice.

I normally relish the cheesy moment when the title of the book is said in the text of the book.

In this case the title of the book appears in the text in reference to one of the dudes' dicks. No joke!

I should have quit an hour or so into the audiobook, but I wouldn't have felt qualified to write this scathing review.

And I would have missed the dick title line.

Oh, AND I hoped it would get better!

Oh wait, there's one more thing I wanted to add! One of the most jarring things was when our elf protagonist encounters and begins to cooperate with humans. It brought up a lot of questions about what the hell this world actually is —

they're French? They have guns, and... solar panels?

— but none of that was interesting enough to actually make me want to find out more. The thing that stood out to me was that the text kept remarking on how awesome humans are. They're ingenious, they're so innovative, they're the most amazing and impressive and strong and resourceful... Who is this pro-human propaganda for??? It was inexplicable and hysterically funny.

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potatooftheworld's review

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is because of the amount of questions there are in the narration. It’s so offputting. That and the fact that unfortunately we didn’t see the characters much in the second half of the book interacting and they keep thinking the other is dead. I love this book and although the tw are harsh and there is a lot that is not warned for, it’s a good book. My only comment is some of the narration is odd and a few other elements here and there.

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gmv's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Overall score: 1.5/5 stars

Entertainment: 5/5 stars

The writing was great.

The contents were awful.

Entertainment value is at 5 stars for all the wrong reasons.

Warning. My review is warped. Proceed with caution.

I highly enjoy Cornell Collins as the narrator—extremely high. He is my favorite narrator. I would listen to anything he says, even if the plot was utter nonsense. I have to emphasize this because he is the only reason why I continued reading the book.

It has everything I dislike. The biggest would be rape, instant love, breeding kink, one-dimensional characters, regression of character development, miscommunication, inconsistent personalities, and repetition of information we already know. I would be more forgiving if there was an actual plot or world-building, but the book is heavily character-focused, and it’s tough not to nitpick when that’s all we have.

I try to avoid the first-person view because the character often repeats the same thoughts in different situations. It’s mentally exhausting. I get it. Let’s move on. My brain wasn’t being stimulated enough, and it was getting harder to care for the characters and the little story it had. It was rape, then angst, then more rape, then dubious straight sex, then more angst, then more rape, and talking about babies, and then more rape. I wanted to read m/m to avoid the breeding kink and the straight sex, but this book reminded me, “Oh, you want the gays to have some fun? Not on my watch.”

It was marketed as a male and male romance, but all I got was vaginas in my face. I didn’t sign up for that. There was so much that I felt like I was the cuck the entire time for a straight couple. Lysander killed my favorite character. The Queen was a boss ass bitch that helped the kingdom get their shit together. And he had to go and ruin it. If the author didn’t want me to see these two having happy gay sex nor let me have my Queen doing bitchy Queen things.

Then so be it.

This led me to the entertainment I created, which made the entire thing like a high school play. I am not going to be an unwilling participant in this party.

The boys are so dramatic—to the point that it is ludicrously asinine. Cornell did a fantastic job of making the characters come alive with the flare of the melodrama, and I wanted nothing more for Eroan and Lysander to go through more pain and suffering. They only wanted to be clever with the “plot” demanded, and then they reverted back to being dumb dumbs. I pictured the actors on stage holding their script, making a face before acting it out, all fully clothed. When the scene changes, I see giant beefy bronze dragons pulling the art pieces off the stage and bringing in new props. This immensely helped with all the penis-inside-vagina sex scenes.

Then, my view changed again when the humans hit the scene.

It changed from a play to a reality TV that humans watch. And it all went downhill from there. I was constantly laughing. I imagined cameras everywhere as the dragons and elves were at each other throats. The humans are way further in advanced technology that I can NOT unsee humans from the mainland watching the drama unfold. No wonder the dragons are dying out, and there are so few elves. The humans felt sorry for them and didn’t want to overtake the island. That’s my head cannon, and I am sticking to it.

To sum it up in the words of Eroan and Lysander:

I didn’t care....
....I didn’t feel.

Content Warnings

bluepaladin's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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joonjxne's review

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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mallorypen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

This book took on the idea of “trashy romance novel” and just dialed it up to eleven, because this … this was trash. No nutritional value, ‘what the fuck am I reading,’ can’t quite look away from the dumpster fire trash.

And sometimes I might say a book is trash with affection and respect. Not so much for this one - the amount of gratuitous violence (mostly sexual) is certainly meant to titillate, but fell short of the mark in so many ways. The Yearning™️ that was meant to come from the many close calls of “oh no, he’s dead” swinging wildly to “oh wait, he’s alive” and back to “but alas, I have killed him unknowingly” never showed up. The explanation for why Lysander was so drawn to Erowan was practically nonexistent beyond “oh no, he’s hot.” The bond they forged over one campfire night was comically strong, and the squickiness of all the other sexual abuse made it hard to really engage with the romance plot line.

Am I gonna read the other books? Maybe … they’re already downloaded. But I also sense a DNF in the offing if the same kind of crap continues.

Content Warnings

napthenknit's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Interesting world building, especially in the latter half of the book.

I would have liked more interaction between the two main characters, but I'm sure that will increase in later books.

Mind the content warnings and take them seriously. There are some very dark scenes running through the entire book.

Audiobook: As always, Cornell Collins is spectacular. Lots of different accents done well and he really leans into the dragon growls and snarls. I also love that he doesn't do shrill, squeaky stereotype voices for women characters. They have varied voices just like the men.

Content Warnings