Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapter 8

Merry criminy, dear readers, we're back and at 'em with the bad.

This chapter isn't quite as hair-raising as the last two; mostly it just made me want to set something on fire and also laugh very hard occasionally. Don't worry, folks, we're on the last leg of the truly nauseating parts: if you can weather this with me, we'll get to point and laugh instead of point and scream soon enough. This is chapter 8 of Moonlit Obsession.

Warning: no physical abuse in this chapter, but the love interest continues to be skin-crawlingly creepy, there are allusions to assault (it doesn't happen, but it's discussed), and I rant about how abusive the romance in this book is, so beware.

Yet again, I'm substituting Deadfall screencaps for photos of the faces I was making while reading. Oh, awful Nic Cage movies... only you understand my anguish.


Chapter 8: I Have Such a Headache

Previously in Moonlit Obsession: Anemone put her training from the Carstairs Family Handbook of Spying to good use and got herself captured, despite having roughly a dozen ways out of the situation at almost any given point. Burke, who is getting more repulsive with every chapter, tried to abuse the intel he's looking for out of her, which kicked my blood pressure up into the high heavens, then Anemone SUPER MEGA SPIED so hard she got knocked out by her own brilliant strategy. Burke undressed her so she could sleep more comfortably, then freaked me the fuck out business as usual.

Anemone opens this chapter by waking up, and being so afraid of finding herself in the hold that she's literally nauseous with fear. 'Cause a debilitating phobia like that wouldn't have hindered her in any way in other spy missions wait, I forgot her previous target in this book handed her all the intel she needed on a silver platter. Clearly she's not used to trying... well, to trying at all.

But nope, she's still in Burke's cabin, and she's alone. She's relieved (oh, the romance), then she realizes she's only wearing a nightgown and... there's a dent left by a head in the pillow next to her OH DEAR GOD WHAT.

I don't care that he didn't actually do anything to her, what is wrong with this asshole?!

For once, Anemone and I are on the same page and she's outraged. Burke strolls into the cabin all a-grinning and I want Kamiko to give him the McSmirk fillet treatment, but no dice; Anemone can't do anything either, because the second she lunges at him to feed him his own eyeballs, he grabs her and holds her down.

Dear readers... this is fucked up. It doesn't matter that all this will be in the past once they fall in true lurve (well, mostly you'll see, and then you'll wish you hadn't), because look at the bigger picture: these two are never, ever, and will never be, on equal footing. Enemies to lovers is a tried and true trope in fiction – maybe tried a little too often at this point if you ask me but for it to work there has to be some sort of balance, or at least some back-and-forth on who has the upper hand, between the two parties. "Person falls in love with someone who is always overpowering and endangering them" is not that. And this heroine is completely helpless because the narrative has shackled her for reasons beyond me; she never has the upper hand in any situation despite a zillion opportunities to get it.

This isn't an Accident Man vs. Jane the Ripper kind of dynamic, where the Big Tuff Man wins the battle but the woman can hold her own almost the entire time (look it up, Accident Man isn't my favorite Scott Adkins movie, but that fight scene is cool and Amy Johnston owns it), and it's not Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones cleverly manipulating men who are vastly more powerful than her. Anemone has zero strength and agency here. She can't do a goddamn thing to Burke because he can always physically restrain her and does so constantly, and despite the narrator bragging about her smarts every other page or so, she can never outwit him either. She's totally in his power and given how sleazy, aggressive and violent he's been so far, God help her once they're in a relationship.

Sorry for the rant, but it wanted out. Moving on.

Anemone yells at Burke for doing Lord knows what while she was out, he's grinning like he has no idea what she's angry for and proceeds to taunt her about her upset, and speaking of Jane the Ripper, I would love her to drop into the scene right about now. And then Anemone, who until now was pitiable at least, loses all my sympathy with a single graceful middle finger to the audience.

She was crying, weeping like an idiot, like the kind of blathering, hartshorn and handkerchief ninny she had always detested, but she couldn't help herself.

So she detests women who cry when they're upset. Hey, Sea Urchin, do you know who the people reading this book are, at least if they haven't noped out yet? WOMEN. And I bet at least some of them are pretty damn upset by now. God, the internalized misogyny is refreshing like a cocktail of uranium and battery acid on a hot summer day.

Anemone's blubbering softens Buffalo Burke and he assures her that he never touched her, he just undressed her and slept next to her while she was knocked out, and I hope to God I don't have to say that this is still messed up and I have such a headache. She forgets her humiliation to drool over his looks again, including his eyes that are "so dark, so blue as to be almost black," and I hope looking at the Mobius strip the author made of the color spectrum hurts as much as reading about it does. She believes him because his eyes are pretty no, seriously, she looks at them for a while and then decides he's telling her the truth and then she tells him he wasn't a gentleman last night. And he laughs at her. Then he stares at her hot bod until she blushes and tells him to get out.

Never thought I'd say this, but Jane the Ripper is too good for this guy. I want the Xenomorph queen from Aliens on this ship with her whole family.

Anemone tells him to quit leering and give her something to wear, and he says he got rid of her maid outfit because it didn't suit her. DO YOU SEE ahem, sorry, the screaming is always so close. Do you see what I meant about her having no agency? We also get to hear that his aura is "aggressively masculine" dear God, dude, shower before you leave the gym. Despite herself, Anemone wonders what it's like to kiss him, and despite still reading this dreck, I wonder whether running headfirst into a brick wall would be a better pastime for me. Buffalo Burke grabs her and marches her out of his cabin while she's protesting that she's almost naked, and he soothes her indignation by saying that his crew doesn't care either way if she walks around like that. SHE CARES, YOU DICK.

Instead of parading the naked captive around for his crew to see, which wouldn't surprise me at all, Burke shoves her into a cabin he's assigned to her and tells her to make herself decent. The cabin is plain but it has a hot bath and a pink dress that's described in way more detail than I care about, saying that it's even prettier than anything Cecilia likes to wear, and will you stop shitting on that poor girl?! I'd rather read about her shopping sprees and asking for hot cocoa any day over this fuckery. After washing and dressing, Anemone thinks about how to weather what she euphemistically calls an interrogation today try abuse, Sea Urchin then Burke knocks on the door, and like the rude fuck we know and hate, strides in before she can answer. Then I laughed very hard because he gives a once-over to her "temptingly curvacious form" and yes, the narrator of this historical novel really just called the heroine bammin' slammin' bootylicious. Nice.

Burke compliments Anemone's looks, and she says a dress is the least he owes her, for abducting her without letting her bring anything from her own wardrobe. Ma'am, I don't think that's how abductions work. She says she can't be bought so easily, and drops a hint about the sum he offered to buy Lord Pelham's intel, letting Burke know that she's a much bigger liability than he would have suspected if she had kept her mouth shut. 

SUPER MEGA SPY!

 
Burke shills her character again, calling her cunning and efficient, and I'm too tired to argue with the book at this point, so I'll just wearily motion at every single time she made me scream SUPER MEGA SPY into the cosmos and let it speak for itself. The chapter ends with Burke bringing Anemone to his cabin for breakfast, and freaking me the fuck out by telling her that he won't abuse her... today.

I need some estrogen and/or adrenaline therapy, stat. Don't go very far, though, I'll be back like Arnold soon once I watch some more videos of Amy Johnston fighting so I can see a genuinely badass woman for once. Or Jessie Graff training. You know what? I'll do a Road to El Dorado and say both is good.

Cheers, gentle readers.

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