CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE, AREN’T YOU, PRIMA, MY GIRL?
I will admit that I am rating this story based on its creativity and the overall execution, which was deviously brilliant, but not on how the story made me feel. Sometimes, an author will take a reader out of their comfort zone, shock them, and leave them shaking their head in disgust and fear. Personally, as I read this, I kept thinking, I think I would just kill myself before I could live that way.
This is one of those stories that you shiver, want to cover your eyes and ears, like watching a horror movie, you don’t want to see, but you can’t look away either. This is definitely not a sweet and sassy romance, this is dark erotic horror in a dystopian world referred to as Cultural Revolution. Woman are objects, bought and sold, even by their own families, they are property owned and used, abused and hopeful bred. What is crazy is that woman are scarce, but they are treated so poorly, they have no rights, no protection beyond their owner, and they are at the mercy of their owner.
Katherine has been renamed Prima; she is a 29-years-old and a virgin who had a nice carefree life before the world changed. She has been sold on Ebay by her ailing father to Joseph and shipped away. Joseph loves punishing her, for no reason at all, except it is his right and he can, and he does, forcing her to submit. For Prima, Joseph becomes her owner, her master, her lover, her Daddy and her husband all wrapped up in one tough, harsh, awkwardly caring man. He inflicts psychological as well as physical torture, and she knows she has no choice but to obey him, or make it much worse on herself. She is beaten, blistered, bridled, fingered, and raped, and it pleases him to hurt her.