Review: Dollars (Pepper Winters)

Publication date: November 2016
Format:
Kindle (317 pages)
ISBN: B01GF9OQMM
Amazon price: 
$3.99 USD (Kindle order)

Rating: 5/5 stars (with a different gif because it feels weird giving the happy high-five one to this book)

Synopsis: Book two of the Dollar series, Pim is freed from Alrik’s stark white home and trades his prison for that of Elder Prest’s yacht.

TL;DR: FEEEEEELLLLLSSSS

Trigger warnings for pretty much anything you can think of, including a more graphic rape scene (but it was also kind of consensual? it was weird and I wouldn’t apply that kind of logic a real-life situation)

“You, my girl, are a warrior, and even warriors are allowed to be afraid.”

Remember how I said I was gonna take it easy with this series? And maybe not finish it? And how it’s just so high stress and difficult to read?

Well. *ahem*

After taking about a week off of reading this book, I decided to try some more. I decided I would read one chapter, maybe two per day until I finished it.

But that was before this book sucked me back in completely.

My feet moved of their own accord. My entire body tingled as I stepped outside. I wasn’t a mute with a butchered tongue. I wasn’t sold into a new nightmare. I was just a girl standing beside a boy in the middle of the ocean.

Like, I had kind of forgotten it was possible to even *have* this many feels.

“That’s the first time you’ve looked weightless and not drowning beneath horror since we met.” I jolted as Elder turned to face me. “I like that look.”

So this book is #2 in a five book series, and if you haven’t read Pennies you should probably stop right here and go read my review.

Dollars picks up where the last book left off. Pim receives emergency surgery on Elder’s bomb-ass yacht, repairing her tongue to the point where she should eventually be able to speak and eat normally again but might lose some nerve endings.

Her medical inability to talk is a blessing, since Elder has every intention of ‘forcing’ her to talk if she refuses. How he thinks he’s going to do this is never clear, but he talks about it quite a bit.

Whenever he touched me, it was more than just a touch. It was possession. In every sense of the word. But it was never a threat. And I couldn’t unscramble how he could be one without the other.

Elder is completely indecisive. One moment he’s beating himself up for pushing her too hard, the next he’s demanding that she talk to him, say anything, as payback for his rescuing her after two years of abuse. I think his yacht could really use an on-board psychiatrist, for both their sake.

But there are some upsides. Pim gets to make some choices for the first time in two years. She goes outside. She eats real food. She meets other people. And when she’s given the chance to run, she doesn’t take it. It’s a strange relationship they have going on, but eventually even Pim has to admit that she can look at Elder without hatred or fear, and even with a sliver of attraction – or arousal. Again, all very quick – I think it would take more than two weeks for the victim of sexual abuse for the past two years to be able to desire a sexual connection with someone else – but we get to see it all, and it’s fascinating to watch Pim’s mind work it all out.

She let me drag her back to the depths to pick up the pieces that’d sank so far inside her she would never have had enough oxygen to dive down and salvage them on her own.

Anyway, forcing myself to wait a day or two before buying the next one and continuing on this damn roller coaster.

Elder Prest was the most dangerous man I’d ever known. Not because he could kill me whenever he chose, but because he had the power to steal so much more than just my life. He could steal my heart.

 

Advertisements Share this:
Like this:Like Loading... Related