Monday, 1 December 2014

Review: Captive








Captive
Author:
Publication Date: November 25th 2014
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

For the past two months, Kitty Doe's life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate the Prime Minister's niece, her frustration grows as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoats keep her in the dark more than ever.

But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she's accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.

As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she'll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in—but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?


Bear with me, I'm probably going to ramble. It's pretty simple. One word. Whoa. Aimee Carter has stepped up her game in Captive, no doubt. Don't get me wrong, I loved Pawn, but I was a little worried wondering where it would go from the ending, I didn't want it to be the same thing, in the same position, but it so wasn't. Captive has brought it's gloves and the action starts straight away with a lot of whoa moments and doesn't hold back the punches.

I loved the direction Captive took, there's a lot of surprises, and even if you suspect them the moment you get them you might want to say  I  knew it. Which I did. A lot. As we saw in Pawn, we only got a little glimpse of Elsewhere, and as twisted as that was, Elsewhere is a whole new level of hell as we get to know Elsewhere from the inside this time and see just how it works and how disturbing it is.  Basically, it's a game of cat and mouse, and it's not if you die, it's when you die. Characters don't live that long and the ones who do know how to play the game or get in with the Guards and the main guy who runs the place by snitching on their inmates. When you're caught, you get caged in with someone you love or the other person involved in whatever rule you broke, and it's fight to the death. And if you don't fight, they will kill you.
There's a lot of character growth in Captive, Kitty's not the same as she was in Pawn, with what she's gone through, she's stronger, but so is her fight or flight instincts and will to keep herself and Benjy alive, and because of that, it's the problem and a lesson she didn't seem to learn in Pawn. Her actions have repercussions, she learns that and as painful as some of that was, she needed to go through it to want more than trying to survive, she wants to fight. Knox, Knox, Knox, I did like him in Pawn, but I'm always going to be on the best friend/romance side, but I see the appeal of Team Knox this time around, and there's way more than meets the eye with that one, watch out for him.
With  perfect character growth, set in a brutal and nasty place with twists and turns and surprises that will make you want to hate Aimee Carter at some point, Captive was everything I wanted it to be, book 3 please?

Rating: 4.5/5