Under His Heel (Under His Heel #1) by Adara Wolf [Review - FURY version]

[rev22x20]

Under His Heel

 

(but really more like under his ass right behind his balls)

 

 

Alex is trapped. His life has been one bad decision after the other, and now he's forced to work off his debt with a spaceship captain or risk a fate worse than death.

 

Captain Tracht is respected and well-connected. Unfortunately, he also has some very questionable private interests, and makes no secret that he intends Alex to participate in them, whether he likes it or not.

 

It's an experience of pain, humiliation, and tears, but somehow Alex finds himself growing less and less interested in his eventual release...

 

 

WARNINGS: "Dark psychological" topics, straight up rape and sexual abuse, HORRIBLE case of Stockholm syndrome which is never addressed, brainwashing aka grooming with a dash of gas-lightning for good measure, a moronic idiotic character who does a 180 shift suddenly for no god damn good reason, incest out of fucking nowhere, sadistic MC's, ANGER AND MORE ANGER.

 

 

I think this goes without saying but SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS also anger, once again. God I haven't been this angry at a character since the Cuff, Collars and Love series by Christa Tomlinson and Pure Evil by Loki Renard

 

My Goodreads review - 1 star because I can't give 0:

I was in the mood for something dark but instead I got angry. What a disgusting book.

 

So many little things irked me about...everything.

 

Alex is not only an idiot (outside of him not finishing school since you learn stuff as you go through life, which obviously he dint since he never bothered to do so. Everything was “boring!!” and every time he had the opportunity to learn something he would refuse so yeah...he’s an idiot and a dumbass) but he’s also unnecessarily cruel and mean towards Parsons. The only person that actually gives a fuck about him and is nice towards him. He constantly belittles him, insults his child (he likes to call the girl a BRAT but not in a cute way; more like an actual insult towards a child and I have 0 patience for people that insult children), insults the memory of Parson’s dead wife, outright tells him he’s boring even though he’s just being nice, teaching his dumb ass stuff or just sharing something he enjoys with him. Like just....disgusting. He’s as much of a psychopath as Tracht. Enjoying films about decapitation and the look of hopelessness on the decapitated person before they die and then get angry with Parsons when he tells him that's not normal, wishing the crew would bother him just so he could see Tracht humiliate them and fire them, getting a hard-on and pleasure every time Tracht does humiliate & fire someone for him, not caring if his own twin brother died and actually hoping for it. He is just a disgusting character and I thought he was going to make me feel bad he was in this situation but honestly, he could die and I would be okay. And don’t even get me STARTED on what he eventually did to Parsons. I just can’t with this selfish, moronic, dick of a character. THE ONLY PERSON willing to get him out of this mess and he goes and do that.

 

Actual quotes from actual character Alex:

 

“Fucking Parsons. Rape was something that happened to chicks and weaklings, and Alex was neither of those. He growled out, “No.” (When he ratted Parsons to Tracht after he only tried to help him and trust him, once again, knowing very well that Tracht was going to punish him aka torture the poor guy. Parsons said to Tracht that he was raping and abusing Alex, which he was, and Tracht asked Alex if he was actually raping him to which Alex gave us that beautiful quote that was not only infuriating but sexist as hell *barfs*)

 

“...Parsons had brought it on himself by being an idiot.” *double barf with added fury + the irony of him calling someone else an idiot. He feels he is completely innocent on what HE did to Parsons, he put all the blame on him when Parsons call him out on it; he washed his hands completely of this horrendous thing. He dint think about the consequences; he knew the punishment for Parsons would be severe plus the ramifications of him not to be able to provide his baby daughter with the education he wanted for her if he was discovered (which he wouldn’t have if this MORON of a character would have helped him and shut up). He then got angry with Parsons when he said he dint want to have any contact with him selfishly saying “but what about me?” Because the world has to cater to his needs 100% even if he almost killed Parsons.

 

“Nice tits. I mean, I think they’re nice. If you smile a bit more, maybe people won’t think you’re such a frigid bitch.” UGH what a DISGUSTING and misogynistic character. Of course he got punished for talking to a woman like that but then he blamed them for his punishment so he dint really learned anything. So victim blaming now and not learning from his mistakes. A moron.

 

& what he did to his own twin brother? Getting off on it? That’s just disgusting and it made me nauseous. I know the guy was a prick but that was WAY too much. (he raped his own twin brother along with Tracht. That's it. He got off on it, he sadistically toyed and raped his own brother. I am still not over this.)

 

Tracht doesn’t surprise me because he has been consistent all throughout the book. Disgusting and evil 100%. He admits to Alex that he’s grooming him to be what he wants him to be and Alex is all 😍😍. THE GUY PEED ON HIS MOUTH AND MADE HIM DRINK IT FOR FUCK SAKES. The power imbalance between these two is astronomical. The kind of pairing you see between two serial killers (one dominant personality and one weak and malleable). So gross.

 

The problem is Alex’s weird shift from simply being selfish and incredibly rude to full blown psychopath and how dumb he is. He could have been changed from good to evil psychopath and I wouldn’t mind but the author dint know how to make the shift believable so he just suddenly got hard while Tracht was being cruel to other people, decided Parsons was a horrible person without giving him the chance and decided to just FUCK his own twin brother because lolz this is fun and it would make Tracht happy. Some might argue an extreme case of Stockholm syndrome but Alex was already, at the very least, a sadistic sociopath when he met Tracht. He just needed a little push from a dominant personality to shift towards sadistic psychopathy.

 

Amazing how 1 character can destroy completely an otherwise passable book. The author tried to make a “dark/psychological” book but they just made a disgusting book that made me and quite a few people here on Goodreads (who are used to dark/psychological books) sick.

 

Honestly, I feel like this covers everything I despise about this book. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE dark/psychological books...I live for them, but when you make a dark/psychological book you always try to have one character that's dark as fuck and one that is a little bit more reluctant and compassionate so that you can actually FEEL bad about one of them and about yourself for enjoying some of the things the dark character does to the gentle one; which is where the whole "psychological" thing comes. To play with your brain. But when you put two sadistic/psychopaths together....I don't feel bad for anybody and stops being psychological and more like a test on how angry and disgusted I can get at two fictional characters.

 

& listen, when I say this character Alex is a moron....I mean, a legit idiot. Like, low IQ idiot.

 

Examples of dark/psychological books that should be worshiped and did the actual genre good: Love of the Egoist by Nero Seal (5 fucking stars what a book), Captive by Jex Lane (at least the first book; 5 stars), Sinister Hunger by Katze Snow (4 stars because it ends on a FUCKING CLIFFHANGER), Conflicted by Katze Snow (4 stars because cliffhangers. I am sensing a pattern here with this author), Auctioned by the goddess Cara Dee (4 stars).

 

Anyways, that was my rant. This was long as fuck but this book made me so angry lmao and this is therapeutic. I don't give my opinion on if the book had grammatical errors (unless they are obvious as hell) because English its not my first language so some errors might fly by and I won't even notice them.

 

 

I want to throw this book straight into the sun.