Enslaved

Way too much shame and self-hate

Evangeline Anderson’s books are a guilty pleasure read. Though I skip around to avoid ones with themes that are not “my thing”, every book has had immense creativity, strong world building, and dynamic characters. Unfortunately, I ended Enslaved feeling unsatisfied and hating one of the main characters.

Trin is a ship captain from an all female society with misguided views about men. Thrace, tricked into a slave market, is saved from death by Trin at considerable expense. To pay back his life debt, Trace agrees to be Trin’s slave until he can help her close a dangerous but profitable deal. This leads to an enjoyable first half of a book. However, at the point when you expect Trin to start growing or developing as a character, she instead plummets down a self-harming pit of shame and self-hate. And worse, she stays down there the entire book, all the way through to the “happy ending”. At first I appreciated the almost parable like theme, but the fact that Trin doesn’t climb her way out of the shame pit made for an unlikable character and an ultimately depressing read.