✨ Alien M x Human F ✨ Insta Lust ✨ Forced Marriage ✨ Game Show Plot

TLDR I fear I’m too woke for this. Won’t rate it one star because I can acknowledge that this book was just never going to be one I enjoyed and I realised that pretty much as soon as the MMC was introduced and he was the exact type of MMC I loathe with a passion. Others might find it great and fair enough, more power to them

Plot Summary Humans are enslaved/oppressed by an alien race and have to sacrifice women into forced marriages every year to stay safe. Humanity is only kept alive so they can take women and use them for breeding. What a loaded beginning, I’m sure this is totally not going to end up with crazy misogynistic themes…

The characters are Cav, a gruff alien Lieutenant who doesn’t even want a wife but also gets hard if the wind blows too hard, and Natalie, a human woman who got picked in the lottery to be forcefully married off and impregnated by her oppressors. Surely she will stand on business and not fall for the literal first male she sees, right?

Writing ✔️ The writing itself is pretty decent. The narrators do a good job. It’s not extraordinary but I didn’t want to only say negative things. Still, there are some pretty cute lines and moments scattered in between everything else, and that’s worth mentioning I think

Plot ➖ The similarities to Hunger Games with the entire deawing ceremony are uncanny. It’s almost like an AU fanfic. I mean the characters aren’t the same but the world building and vibe concept is pretty much the same.

➖ The balance between smut and plot was a bit off, because there wasn’t all that much plot but also not all that much smut so… It’s mostly just… lust in internal monologue, I guess?

Charachters ✖️ The MMC’s introduction is him viewing humans as lesser beings and then jerks off to to just normal headshots of women 🫩

I would accept whatever wife was matched to me, fuck her, impregnate her, and report back for ship duty.

Charming. His opinion doesn’t really change, like… ever.

✖️ The FMC insists that she is going to avoid this marriage at all costs, only to give up her entire life back home, her aspirations and dreams, for a man whose biggest pro is “not as misogynistic as everyone else here.”

Worldbuilding ✖️ The alien race seems culturally no different from the humans. It’s easily forgettable that they even are different aside from having blue skin and stuff.

✖️The dehumansation of women and the way the entire setting treats them is akin to a 4chan user’s free-use-enslaved-women-fantasy. I just don’t like the entire premise of this world. Human women are kept around like breeding livestock, paraded like dogs, assaulted for entertainment…

✖️ Humans seem to be just completely passive about this. No one actually cares that this is happening to their women, they treat it like an infomercial. The entire story has no emotional weight because of it. Even the FMC is more annoyed about possibly being off planet for a couple years than she worries about being bartered off as a broodmare. To me, there is nothing appealing about this world

— (For the record, if you enjoy this; no judgement. I personally just hate these types of stories because books are the one place I want to be free of the patriarchy and misogynistic men, so this stuff grates me.)