Re-read Claimed

I read this last four or five years ago, and remember finding parts of it frustrating, but it was even more frustrating on re-read. I admit this was somewhat of an angry-read.

The heroine is astonishingly incurious and closed-minded. She has no interest in learning about the alien culture she’s suddenly living in, and is terrified of everything she shouldn’t be (pets, massage equipment) yet oblivious to things that might actually be a problem (gets trashed on alcohol she thinks looks like milk, because obviously every white liquid in the fridge will be milk; gives no thought to avoiding the one part of the ship she’s told is dangerous). When she asks the hunky alien why he picked her out of all Earth women, I was wondering the same thing — she doesn’t have much personality going on. She’s also generic: her favorite food is pizza, she has a secret thing for sexy lingerie, and she’s never had an orgasm with a man before so she literally made herself a playlist to keep herself from being bored during sex. From a writing standpoint this choice is probably so she can serve as an “everywoman” and every reader can project themselves onto her (I mean, unless you have a single adventurous bone in your body 😉).

The heroine has a reasonable complaint about being taken away from her family and everyone she knows; shouldn’t a race of “genetic traders” who do this on many planets have experienced similar opposition previously, and learned how helpful it would be to integrate their races (letting select family members live on the ship too) and integration newcomers into their society (offering jobs / roles in their society to women with comparable skills)? These don’t seem like unreasonable compromises, and would probably actually benefit their society — so I’m led to believe they only want the genetic input and not anything more from the women they “draft.”

The story also frustratingly relies on an untruth about women’s sexuality, that if a woman is physically around it means she’s mentally willing. Her body is not sending you messages, dude, listen to what she’s saying with her mouth. No means no. This was published before #metoo so maybe it would have been written differently today.

They mention that the hero’s been (very recently) tortured, yet completely dismiss the idea that he might need some like therapy, support, or recovery time.