The Unwilling: A Novel

The Unwilling: A Novel by Kelly Braffet
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I read an ARC of this book.
This was a very dark, depressing book with hardly any redeeming qualities. Four children are forced to grow up together in a fortress in an oppressive totalitarian state, and are neglected at the best of times and horribly abused at the worst (and that abuse is often depicted graphically). If some relief or respite from the horrific mistreatment of these characters occurred, then perhaps the book might have been better. But it seemed that no matter what, life would never get better for them. Outside of these 4 characters, the other people depicted in the book also led dismal hopeless lives. I kept waiting for something to happen to make things even a little bit better, but when that seemingly might happen, nothing really changed.
The unlikable characters, graphic depictions of physical and mental abuse, and--sorry for the spoiler--detailed description of a pregnant woman being mauled, killed, and eaten by dogs, really made this story hard to trudge through. And at the end, there was no real resolution. I really feel that I wasted a great deal of time reading a book with no real point or purpose. I would not recommend this book to anyone, and I will not be reading any subsequent books in what I can only hope will be a series (because even though I really don't care what happens to these characters, I will feel less like I wasted my time reading this book if I can believe that at some point at least a couple of them might end up, if not happy, then maybe better off than they were at any point in Book 1).


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