Imme [trying to crawl out of hiatus] van Gorp's Reviews > Just a Bit Captivated

|| 3.0 stars ||

This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. It had a very cliché premise with an extremely subpar execution. There was absolutely no depth to this whatsoever, and neither did we see any details of the story, characterization or romance.

We skipped in time about a billion times, which meant we didn’t get to see any of the actual development between the couple. We don’t see them falling in love, we don’t get to understand why they develop feelings; honestly, we aren’t even told why either of them become attracted to the other, which is odd considering the less than stellar circumstances these two find themselves in, meaning it wasn’t exactly likely anyone would feel any lust in that situation, so an explanation as to why they did would have been appreciated.

Considering it’s a story about human trafficking and the main character finds himself in a ‘prison’-like situation with his ‘love interest’ as captor I would have expected more hate, mistrust and resentment, so it was pretty weird to see that they suddenly had this giant amount of sexual chemistry, let alone an intimate or romantic connection. It just wasn’t explained properly, and therefore, failed to show me a relationship with true feelings and emotions. It was mostly just lust, especially at first, and after that it seemed there was merely an unhealthy obsession between them. Not love.

Aiden crawled into Zain’s lap and looped his arms around his neck. “Hey,” he said with a small, fond smile. “What’s got you brooding now?”
Fond. He had no business looking at him this way. Sometimes Zain wanted to shake him. He might not have kidnapped Aiden himself, but he had treated him horribly at the beginning. Zain didn’t deserve his fondness. He didn’t deserve the soft smiles.
He still craved them like a thirsty man craved water in the desert. He wanted everything—every smile, every millimeter of skin, every molecule.

This book was Stockholm Syndrome at its finest, I suppose. Although I would have loved more proper development for it to be believable. But that’s probably too much to ask of this author.
It’s just mindless fun with a toxic, possessive couple doing obsessive and insane things; a typical AH book. Yet, still, there was something missing here that I did find in a bunch of her other books. Something about the couple just didn’t work that well.


'Straight Guys' series:
0. Straight Boy - 3.0 stars
1. Just a Bit Twisted - 3.5 stars
2. Just a Bit Obsessed - 3.0 stars
3. Just a Bit Unhealthy - 2.5 stars
4. Just a Bit Wrong - 3.5 stars
5. Just a Bit Confusing - 1.5 stars
6. Just a Bit Ruthless - 4.0 stars
7. Just a Bit Wicked - 3.5 stars
8. Just a Bit Shameless - 4.5 stars
9. Just a Bit Gay - 1.0 star
10. Just a Bit Dirty - 3.0 stars
11. Just a Bit Wrecked - 2.5 stars
12. Just a Bit Bossy - 3.0 stars
13. Just a Bit Heartless - 3.5 stars
14. Just a Bit Captivated - 3.0 stars
15. Just a Bit Guarded - 3.5 stars