Faith is an F-Psy, one of the
rare Psy who can see the future. And she’s one of the best of the best,
literally worth billions from her forecasts
Until her visions become more unpredictable, dangerous and horrific – and she sees not just economic trends, but some brutal murders. The killer stalks her dreams and she fears she may be heading for the inevitable insanity that everyone expects the F-Psy to suffer – or she may crack enough for even her limited freedom to be shattered… for her “own good” of course
But is the only alternative the mysterious, ominous
werejaguar who seems so obsessed with her and will not stop until he has
demolished all her walls?
It’s difficult to write a review when nearly everything
positive I want to say about this book I have already said in my review of Slave to Sensation, mainly the world
setting. The whole history and complexity of Psy society, their different
powers and abilities and how they’ve evolved with the introduction of the
Silence is excellent. I like that we can still see crumbs of why the Psy would
have turned to Silence even as we also see how it is so terrible for them now.
I like as we explore more and more of the Changelings own history as well –
particularly since it shows a lot of their brutal pasts (even if there is a
sense of giving the male love interests tragic pasts because nothing makes
brooding alpha males sexier than deep seated childhood trauma, apparently) and
that their society is also not perfect. It would be easy to paint Changelings
as good and Psy as bad but there’s clearly more involved in that. I also like
how we had a brief introduction of humanity to this series – just a reference
because more wouldn’t be relevant.
I like how this has been developed and the introduction
of the Netmind and what that actually means for the Psy race. This world
setting is not only fascinating and unique but it is also growing and
developing.
The writing continues to be excellently paced and well
balanced, bring in both the world building and action and development in a well
balanced manner.
I have to say I wasn’t a big fan of Vaughn or Faith. I
think both of them were pretty much avatars of their supernatural nature
without a whole lot of characterisation on top of that. Faith is a repressed
F-Psy and that’s pretty much her character. I didn’t really get much of a sense
of her as a person. I’m much more interested in seeing the relationship between
her and her father. Or even just in her father. The same goes for Vaughn, he’s
a were-jaguar who is close to his Beast but I don’t have much of a sense of him
as a person beyond that. Which is a shame because we already have hints of his
personality with his choice of decorating and the fact he’s an artist by
profession. We also needed more of their actual relationship beyond “rawr sexy
psy” “zomg so hot jaguar” mating bond, relationship, declarations of love – job
done.
Sadly, the most toxic element of the romance I complained
about it Slave to Sensation is repeated in
this book – and multiplied several times over. Vaughn has zero respect for Faith’s
consent or body autonomy.
Faith firmly believes that touch will overwhelm her. Because
she has been brought up with no physical contact and convinced that F-Psy will
literally pass out and have seizures if they are touched. Worse, because that
risks bringing down her shields to the psy-net and expose herself to anyone who
wishes to violate her privacy and her mind. We even see an example of this when
Vaughn repeatedly touches her despite her saying no and despite Sascha telling
him not to do this.
But it doesn’t matter WHY Faith is saying Vaughn
shouldn’t touch her. What is relevant is, like Sascha in the previous book,
Faith repeatedly tells him over and over again that she doesn’t want to be
touched. Her reasons are irrelevant. If someone doesn’t want you to touch them,
you do not touch them. Establishing this romance on Vaughn not giving even the
slightest shit about Faith’s boundaries is not romance, it’s a foundation of
disrespect and abusiveness
Actually, I take it back – it does matter why Faith was
saying no. Not because she thinks she will literally suffer and die from his
touch – but because she is wrong. Because the story establishes Vaughn’s touch
as the only thing that saves her from her dark visions. And Vaughn insists that
Faith needs his touch to help break her Silence Conditioning that is weakening
her and making her vulnerable
And he’s right
Why, in the name of all that is sensible, is he right? How does he know anything about the Psy, their physiology or what they can endure? How does he know Faith, her powers, her mind better than she knows herself? This comes down to him basically knowing Faith better than she knows herself. He ignores her consent, but it’s “ok” because he knows what’s good for her – far better than she knows herself. A man violating a woman’s bodily autonomy because he knows what she needs better than she does is such a destructive trope that I honestly can’t even begin to dredge up words to describe this.
What I do like and also wished was explored more was more
of Faith’s conflict over living as a Psy or abandoning it all to live with
Vaughn. After all, she’s a Psy with considerable wealth, prestige, status and
potential power in the Psy world. She is quite literally one of the best in the
world at what she does and could wield considerable influence. She is a part of
this world – and while Sacha suffered every day in her world, Faith is esteemed
in the life she leads. It should have been a hard decision.
In terms of diversity we continue to see the Psy
portrayed as a racially very mixed people. In fact, Faith is very surprised to
see a very pale Psy because such pale skin is very rare when the Psy mix their
genes so very much. As Sacha has a mix of East Asian, South Asian and White
family, this is the standard for most Psy. Faith herself is White and East
Asian. Vaughn is described in ambiguous terms but could easily be read as
non-White.
I do wish Sacha played a more important role in this
book, but she is still vital if a lot more background than I’m happy with. I
think her being stronger and in charge – alongside the Pack’s healer and the
single female Sentinel – would do a lot to add more female representation –
specifically female representation that doesn’t focus around a man forcing
boundaries “for her own good”. There continues to be no LGBTQ people.
I’ve focused on a lot of the negative here because there
are some major issues that need mentioning at length which isn’t helped by the
lack of characterisation by the major characters giving me not a lot to
counter. I still really like the world setting – the grand meta plot and some
of the background characters are truly awesome and beyond worth reading this
book for alone. It’s a shame that Faith and Vaughn are so problematic.
