Spoilers below…..
This was recommended to me because it had content I was looking for. However, the book is, quite frankly, a hot mess. The writing, the plot, the characters, none of it meshed well. First and foremost, the writing style was difficult to get past. The prose was not very sophisticated, and there was little cohesion. It felt like you were reading the author’s rambling thoughts, which may make sense in their head but when you put it down on paper make absolutely no sense to the reader because we have no context. There were also a lot of breaks in the text at odd times which interrupted the flow. The dialogue in Italian and Russian with no on page translation also did the same. I appreciate the endnotes with translations but that’s not helpful when I have to stop, go to the end, find the line I read, then go back and reread the paragraph so I can understand what’s happening. One line actually had the Russian dialogue in Cyrillic, without translation. So, that was just lost completely. The texts between Lock and C were atrociously hard to decipher. They texted as if it was 2002 and they’d just purchased their first Nokia phones. Poor stylistic choices and execution.
There was so much that was glossed over or unexplained. So many plot holes. And I get that it’s not a standalone, there are more books, but the first book should set the stage for the rest of the story. This one didn’t even make it to the theatre. And if you take the author’s first “not an epilogue” as the true end of the story, then you’re really left with nothing.
I spent the first 25% or so of the book trying to figure out how a 19 year old girl ends up roommates with two women almost a decade older than her with whom she seemingly has no real connection. It made absolutely no fucking sense that C (I’m going with C because the Irish spelling of her name is beyond my capability) would be living with these women. She didn’t even like them. It was simply a convenient way to introduce her to Lock, without any real justification for their existence in the story. Some throw away line about her dad having taught one of them as a student and connected her when she needed a place to live? Idk. We got almost zero information about her parents so I guess that could be true. This plot has more holes than Swiss cheese.
We’re sold a story that takes place in the seedy criminal underworld of Seattle and get exactly zero of that. Lock is a sex worker at a club owned by a presumed criminal . We don’t really know. It’s a lot of throw away Italian and vague references by Lock to being used and bound to this club without ability to leave. Again, absolutely no clarification. Supposedly he’s stuck working in the club because of some unexplained reason that will cause him some unexplained consequence if he leaves. He tells us he’s basically in charge and takes one for the team every now and then when the owner wants him sexually to make life easier for the others who work there. But we have no idea what that even means, because again, we’re not in the author’s mind and they do a poor job of storytelling. Then about halfway through Lock changes his tune and he tells us he built the club into what it is. Most of the rooms and themes, etc., were his idea. He has so much pride in the club. What??? Is this the same club he was forced to work at on pain of death or some nonsense?? Who knows. Not the reader.
Lock and C meet one night when C’s token roommates take her to the club he works at for her birthday. Naturally they know him from high school in the unnamed town they all lived in, but somehow all left, and then all ended up in Seattle together. Roomies “heard” somehow that Lock worked there. Why did they care to go find him when neither of them seems to like him at all? Couldn’t tell you. But if they hadn’t, Lock and C don’t meet. Very convenient Swiss cheese.
Lock and C are drawn to each other. He goes home with her and takes her v card without knowing it. Surprise. Let’s all harass and embarrass her about it the next day. Fucking eye roll. I loathe and despise stories with virgin female characters exactly like C. Naive and innocent who can’t string two words together around a man. They have sex once and then all of a sudden become depraved sex goddesses overnight. No. Just No. Moving on…
C is incredibly naive and stupid. Lock is draped in a red flag. He leaves a trail of red flags in his wake. She’s known him a grand total of one week and is professing her love for him with hearts in her eyes. He’s so evasive and cagey that only someone as truly stupid as C is in this story would fall in love with him within one week. She’s got a serious case of virgin heart.
All that being said, Lock is the best part of this story and I loved him. The author has created an intriguing character but ultimately did him no justice because he’s as shallow as a puddle. We get no depth to him whatsoever. Every few pages he’s revealing something new about himself but there’s no further exploration. Lock’s relationship with Anna is a glaring red flag that needs to be explored. It’s not even the sexual nature of their interactions. They’re sex workers. They perform together. Ok, fine. As an aside, Lock’s narration of his and Anna’s sex scene in the champagne room was utterly absurd. All of a sudden he’s a poet and trying to juxtapose seedy sex with a refined backdrop. Like watching a sex scene in a movie where they try to make it high brow by playing classical music. It was so out of the blue and made no sense, but totally par for the course in this book. Anyway..Lock and Anna. He also sleeps with her on their own time on the reg. (This happens on page after he meets and sleeps with C for anyone who cares about things like that). He talks about this symbiotic relationship between them, how they use each other for mutual release and are so in tune with each other’s desires and bodies, and how they basically saved each other years ago (more Swiss cheese). But it’s obviously more than that. He has an emotional relationship with her, it’s not just sex. Whether he’s lying to himself or to her idk. Anna’s twitchy about Lock’s relationship with C. Lock’s cagey about Anna. And C just smiles and nods because she’s a fucking teenager. Right. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, child.
I wish this wasn’t as poorly written as it is because I truly enjoyed Lock as a character. I’d read a whole book in only
his POV. I skimmed a whole bunch of this after awhile because I only cared about reading his chapters. The rest was a waste. I do want to know how his story ends but I can’t commit to another 3 or 4 books like this one.