Captive Prince by C.S. PacatMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Whoo boy, I must have missed the controversy that came with this book when it first came out because I didn't really know anything about this going in (random number generator picked it for me out of my recommended by friends list).
The book provides a map and list of characters, divided by country created world, which is always nice in fantasy, but I still felt really lost in the first chapter with all the names thrown about. The gist is that Damen was betrayed by his bastard brother and sold into captivity to an enemy country. His country and the land think their prince is dead and I guess no one (I bet I know someone who knows who he is) recognizes him in the enemy country. He's treated as a prisoner and brought to the enemy country, a country that has "pets" and sleeps with the same sex because they revile bastardy so much.
Anyway, by chapter 3 I was already checking out because of the enemy courts rape and pedophilia culture . Damen is brought in and they have a wrestling match where the winner rapes the loser (there's some alluding to it being more of a performance for the people watching). The crowd getting turned on by the rape begin getting sexual with their pets, it's almost an orgy. Ok, fine, I thought we had an erotic/a situation going on here with some line toeing but then Damen remarks on how young one of the pets is, a prepubescent boy and the pedophilia is not quite always front and center from there but with a big secondary character that is a prepubescent boy, it hovers around the spot light.
What really didn't work for me was the tone, this felt like a Literotica.com story, the sexual overtone felt like it was meant to titillate and with prepubescent boys and a forced sexual act on Damen, the tone wasn't something I liked matched with the action happening on page.
I see people like the very slow burn tension that is happening between Damen and his captor Laurent and Laurent seems interesting with his ice façade and, what I'm guessing, is survival technique from surviving his own abuse from his uncle but the tone I talked about is not for me. The fantasy world setting seemed less filled out in favor of the cultural sexual aspects, too.
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