lorenalee

After reading the Golden Dynasty by Kristen Ashley and absolutely hating it, I was curious as to whether all this authors’ books were the same way (misogyny through and through). While Knight wasn’t as bad, and I actually laughed a lot (though it wasn't actually meant to be funny), I still don't like the book. The issues I have with it are too grave - in my opinion - to be overlooked.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that Anya started calling Knight Daddy. I didn’t mind him calling her Baby. But Daddy? Thankfully this did not occur until halfway through the book, but his insistence that she call him Daddy, especially during sex, well it's just not for me.

Then the fact that Knight is a pimp and then – wait for it – justifies it by saying that his mother was a prostitute and had a hard life, and since he takes good care of his stable, they are better off with him than then they would be on their own or with a pimp who mistreats them.

Her reaction to his big confession:

“I’m scared of buildings falling on me when I’m in underground parking lots. […] I’m scared of elevators. I get in them and unless I can focus on something else, all I can think is that they’ll plummet me to my death. I never took the elevator in my building. You live on the fifteenth floor. I’m in okay shape but that, uh…no.”

Wow, her “secrets” really are just as significant as I’m a pimp.

She also only has his word that he is a good pimp or whatever it is he tells himself, as she distances herself from that part of his life. (very healthy)

That shit, the girls, the Russians, it is my business, not my life. You are my life. That doesn’t leak to it, except what I gotta do to maintain it that takes my time and energy. You are not new best friend to fifty-seven bitches. That does not exist for you.

The heroine in Kristen Ashley's books is once again able to accept the aspects of the hero's life as the way it is. Accept the "justification" and is once again content to look the other way, while making sure that she never comes into contact with the ugly truth.

I do not like the way Kristen Ashley justifies unmoral and illegal acts in her books.

Just because it would happen anyway does not condone such acts and is not a justification! Hell, one can justify numerous things this way: Well I sell drugs, but it’s okay, because someone would sell them anyway, and this way I can make sure that the shit is good... Well I murder people for money, but it’s okay, because they would get killed by someone anyway, and this way I can make sure it’s quick and painless… NO.

Knight is an asshole. He's disrespectful to Anya and is just a misogynistic pig. His excuse for his behavior towards her is that he is controlling and possessive, but he is simply rude to Anya. I did not like how controlling he is, to the point of actually restricting in her freedom to please his possessive nature. But it's all okay because he is so ho-ot.

At least I could laugh through some parts of the book:

I froze in panic and my arms went from around him so my fingers could curl around his wrists tight.
“I need to tell you something.” I stated quickly.
His eyes focused on me. “What?”
I didn’t tell him what. I wasn’t thinking. I was freaking out. I wanted him, was scared how much I did, I was scared of what having him meant and lastly, I was scared about what I’d just agreed to.
“It’s important you’re warned,” I whispered.
“What?”
“With the way you think you see me, you need to know before you find out.”
His head jerked slightly, his eyes held mine intently and one of his hands twisted my fingers free and came up to curl around my neck.
Then he whispered, “Baby, what?”
“My tummy’s round,” I whispered back and he blinked.
Then he repeated, “What?”
“I, um…I’m not perfect. I have a little Buddha belly.”
He stared at me.
Stupidly, I kept talking. “I run, do crunches, you know… stuff like that. I do it regularly, I mean, as regularly as I can which kinda isn’t regularly. But it doesn’t go away. And, um… I don’t want you to be disappointed when you see because I think you see something in me and you need to know I’m just me. I’m not how you see me. I’m not perfect.”

And here I was thinking she only had 30 more days to live or something.

Well, while it is good that she thinks she's perfect, minus her

of course. It's really sad, that her self esteem depends on whether or not he's ok with her body as it is...

Well, in the end their baby girl is lying on her daddy’s chest and I just couldn’t stop a morbid sense of curiosity from wondering whether Anya will still call him her “Daddy” during sex after their daughter starts calling him daddy as well. Eww!

After reading The Golden Dynasty and Knight from Kristen Ashley, I sure as hell will never ever touch another one of her books again. It will save me from many hours of disgust and anger and the subsequent drinking to dull that disgust and anger.