Untouchable by Sam Mariano

 

DNF @ 47%

So before I dive into this review, a quick disclaimer. I'm friends with the author, which is why I didn't touch this book for so long. I don't usually read author friends' books unless I'm sure I'll like them because I refuse to lie about how good or bad I find something, and since I've lost friends over this in the past, it's just easier to not read anything by buddies unless they're already a fave so I don't have to deal with fallout. But UNTOUCHABLE is popular enough (hello, Hype Week!) that I figured one negative review wouldn't make a difference or not, and I really like the author as a person, so I figured, why not? After all, it seemed like something I would love.

(Thank you, Heather, for reading this book with me.)

I have a lot of thoughts about UNTOUCHABLE. Unfortunately, most of them aren't positive, but some of those reasons are a me-thing and not an author-thing. I actually did like the beginning of this book. I thought it was super brutal and portrayed how much privileged guys think that they can get away with when they're held up by a town. It was super uncomfortable to read, but it felt accurate, and the heroine's responses mostly did, too.

Shortly after Zoey Ellis (why is NO ONE else talking about how she has the same name as a popular Omegaverse erotica author? Every time I heard her name, I kept thinking CRAVE TO CONQUER?) is sexually assaulted in a classroom, Carter comes a-courting. By which, I mean, he comes to basically deliver her a treatise on what he'd like to do to her in bed while threatening her some more. This, too, felt pretty creepy (in a good way) and I liked that she told him off. It also felt realistic that she'd want to stay home from school after it all happened because that shit is traumatic.

What didn't work for me is that just a few chapters later, Zoey decides she likes Carter. And they start going out as boyfriend and girlfriend and joking about her near-rape. Which makes it even more uncomfy because their first time basically is rape because Zoey agreed to "just the tip" and Carter decided it was going to be full penetration without a condom. Yikes. Now, to be clear, dub-con and non-con don't bother me at all. I actually like it when done well. What didn't work for me here was the tonal shift, and how they went from what happened in the classroom to almost being like one of those teen Netflix romances (one of the more problematic ones). It felt like a big swath of character development was missing to take these characters from point A to point B.

Later, Zoey decides that she likes rape play, and she starts kind of goading Carter to get him to be rougher. So I felt like the metatext in this book almost started becoming an analysis of female sexuality and fantasy, and how rape and fantasy rape are different. But that wasn't really touched on here, nor, really, was the angst that Zoey should be feeling about engaging in these kinds of behaviors with a man who tried to and then did rape her for real. I also feel like there are real gaps between Zoey being a feminist in a toxic football town that seems entrenched in 1950s gender ideals, and the uncomfortable way that Carter is sexualized by everyone, including adult women. Those women are predators, if they are having sex with a minor, and apparently (if I understand the spoilers that I read right) Carter got one of them pregnant when he was thirteen. WHAT. Considering that Zoey is a feminist, this is something she really could have talked about with Carter-- how his sexuality could have been seriously fucked up by having sex with adults as a minor, and how he was applauded for it as some kind of stud making just another kind of conquest, instead of what it actually was: him being the victim of statutory rape.

I do think the author is a good writer, and there were some pretty great passages and quotes in here, but I just hated the romance between the main couple for what it was that I could not continue. Also, apparently there's teen pregnancy in here, too, and that is a trope that I am seriously NOT a fan of. There's actually a very similar YA story (I know, right??) from the 80s called EASY CONNECTIONS. A rockstar and his buddies trick a girl who's accidentally trespassed into their mansion into coming inside, where they wine and dine her-- and then rape her. She gets pregnant and the psycho rockstar guy stalks her and manipulates everyone around her into giving them what he wants: her. She lives in a toxic old school English town where everyone gaslights her into staying with him, but she's a feminist creative and wants to pursue her own agenda, so she keeps refusing him, which only makes him angrier.

I think if you're a huge fan of EASY CONNECTIONS and looking for a book with similar themes, or you like that rapey shoujo manga from the 90s like Boys Over Flowers and Peach Girl, you'll probably enjoy this book, and since I think a lot of people did and do, that probably accounts for why this book is so popular. I'm sorry I didn't enjoy it more but I think I will maybe check out some of her mafia books at some point since that's a genre I've been starting to get into again and I know she can write a psycho.

2 to 2.5 out of 5 stars