This was one of those books that I thought would be right up my alley but ultimately just wasn't for me due to several elements in the story. The first is the sexualization of young girls. Now, I can get on board with an adult person that is romantically or sexually interested in a 1,000+ year old person because, as I said, they are both adults regardless of the age difference. In my mind, this is two consenting adults. However, what I can't get on board with is a child that is being romanticized or sexualized by an adult. That is immediately a major put-off for me. In this book, it was hard for me to get past not only the idea that an adult male is sexually attracted to a child but that characters were actually acting on those impulses. It's grotesque and I'm not sure how I even finished this book. In addition, the age difference between the main female & male characters puts the main male character in a position of power over the child. He even takes advantage of this and uses the excuse that he "loves" her or that they are soul mates and I guess knows what's best for her. I've read many dark romance books and read some really messed up scenes in books but those books were with consenting adults. I just don't understand why the author couldn't have made the main female character an adult.

The second was the fact that I just didn't like the world that was built. It's a matriarchal society but the women in charge are horrible people and most of the men aren't any better. While men are considered to be sex slaves and can be controlled with rings around their privates, they still have power over women. The power women have in this world depend on them being a virgin and how she loses her virginity. If a man rapes her, she loses her power. The women were evil sadists and the men were angry rapists. I feel I wasn't given anything to like or find redeeming about this world or the story. There's torture, mutilation, rape, pedophilia, child abuse, incest, etc. Now, in some stories, some of these things are justified as being important to the storyline and later there's some kind of redemption but I just didn't find that true here at all.

Overall, I just couldn't recommend this book at all to anyone. It left me feeling disgusted and unsatisfied.