Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Brutal Tale of Torture and Revenge
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 5, 2015
On the surface, this book is about a woman who is kidnapped and subjected to torture and degradation. Her fiancé is also tortured by a decision he is unable to make. Yes, the scenes of the woman being subjected to horrific things are cringe-worthy, but I think the real story is about the two men who kidnap her.
As children, they were social outcasts. As so often happens, they were bullied because they were different: they didn't look right or didn't talk right or their parents were poor or they were bad at sports or any of the various reasons kids bully each other. They were both alone and were victims until they found each other. Once they had each other, they began to take revenge on their tormenters, presumably because they gained strength through the other one.
They honed their torturing techniques through the years until the point of this story is reached. We have no idea how long they have been kidnapping women. We know they kidnap beautiful women who are involved in relationships and this is something neither of them were ever able to have. So they get their revenge on the beautiful women who rejected them and on the men the beautiful women loved so the men would know the feeling of powerlessness they felt as children.
We all know bullying is very damaging to children. Most bullied kids do not resort to the revenge these two needed to get, but bullying makes kids vulnerable to many bad influences. Once they find someone or some group that accepts them, they often can't distinguish between positive and negative influences. They are just so relieved to belong. I think this story is a warning about the depths some damaged kids may sink to simply because they didn't wear the right kind of shoes
