Desperate Measures
by Katee Robert
Once upon a time, I was a sheltered princess.
On the night Jafar takes everything from my father, he offers me a devil’s bargain—walk with my freedom and nothing else, or attempt to best him and regain my inheritance. In my arrogance, I play right into his hands. I foolishly assume I have a chance to come out on top.
I’m wrong.
Now Jafar owns me, body and soul.
We fight during the day, but when night comes, we play out every fantasy I’ve never allowed myself to admit to having. I can’t hide them from Jafar, though. We know each other—and the dark desires we share—far too well. He sees to my every need, no matter how carnal or extravagant. It’s almost enough for me to be happy…
But a gilded cage is still a prison, and I’ll do anything to obtain my freedom—even betray the man I’m falling for.
Spice Level: 5/6 | Story Score: 7/10 | Rating: 3.5/5 |
There’s a book by Katee Robert on nearly every recommendation list I go through. This book in particular is on every fairytale retelling list I found. It seemed like an obvious choice even though I kept putting it off because it wasn’t on Kindle Unlimited. None of her books are though, and I wanted to try something by her. It will not be on the trope list because the major one has already been used and it wasn’t enough of any others to take those spots.
This book gave me an existential crisis.
Alright, that’s not fair. This book, on top of all the others I’ve read recently, finally culminated in me having deep, bold psychological opinions that I felt the need to extol to a friend that didn’t deserve to have to listen to it. Warning: they’ll probably be in here too.
Plotline: Jasmine has been sold to a man to solidify a business deal. Before she can be married off, Jafar, Jasmine’s father’s second-in-command, seizes power from her father, and by extension, “ownership” of her. They’ve known each other for five years, have flirted with each other forbiddenly for that whole time.
Jasmine has been a prisoner her entire life and just wants to be free. Jafar just wants to be powerful. They fall in love but still both want what they want more than they love the other. Until one of them doesn’t and caves.
Simple enough plot. Throw in a lot of kinky sex scenes and a book, you have.
My first issue is that I didn’t like Jasmine. I didn’t like the way she thought, spoke, reacted, or behaved. If I could’ve gotten past the dislike, I also couldn’t relate to her. I am obviously not the princess of a criminal empire…but I’m also not the daughter of an evil dragon ruler, and I connected to that character just fine.
This story had strong Dominant/submissive themes which I have no real issue with in general. I enjoy power exchanges in a lot of books. However (here comes my rant), a person has to HAVE some power to exchange. Jasmine has none. Notta. Zilch. Her ONLY power comes from the fact that Jafar likes her and respects her use of safewords. But Jasmine has never been outside of her father’s mansion before; she has no friends, no money, no working knowledge of the world, no previous sexual experiences. She has nothing other than SOOOOME body autonomy that Jafar gives her. This girl doesn’t even have control of her thoughts or feelings most of the time. I get that it’s supposed to be her letting him have control and in return, he takes care of her. It just never hit that mark for me. There were brief glimpses of it, but overall, she was just…a possession and possessions do not have any power of their own.
Beyond that, *sigh*, I don’t have a daddy kink. I’ve read several books that included one and it’s not always an issue for me, but in this one, it was. She obviously had daddy issues, they both knew her dad, he sucked. It was just uncomfortable for me. I’m also not into roleplaying (though I can’t wait for the day that a book changes that for me). Between these two things and the fact that I didn’t like her, one of the biggest sex scenes in the book didn’t work for me and I was so fucking bummed. It had plenty of other things I liked, but I couldn’t enjoy it.
It always surprises me which things in books bother me because it doesn’t seem to be a constant. (I mean, I didn’t guess that CNC would be fine but daddy kinks are not.)
I wanted to like this book. I paid for it, even! But mostly, I’m just happy it was only 230 pages and I’m done. There were several grammatical errors (like leaving words out of a sentence), several phrases or words used repeatedly… It wasn’t for me.
Also, Rajah is their safeword and not a tiger and that made me sad.
-SPOILERS-
I was super impressed with the way that CNC was introduced in this book. I mean, by page 16, it was there. It’s what started my brain-melt. What defines CNC? Is it pre-established rules? Is it the option of using a safeword, and choosing not to? Jasmine and Jafar have an established safeword for their interactions. They do. But, not taking into account that we are in her head while it happens and observing from an outside view, Jafar chases Jasmine down, pins her to the ground, and has sex with her while she repeats over and over “I don’t want this.”
Alright, as a jury, that’s rape.
Now tell the jury that she had a safeword, but chose not to use it.
Um, okay?
But they’d never taken things beyond words before this.
Oh.
Now, she tells you that she wanted it the whole time but she wanted him to take it.
I’m a criminal justice major and my head hurts.
Honestly, the author did a really good job because I didn’t hate Jafar at any point. I am a FIRM believer of preset boundaries because partners can’t be sure they KNOW what you want. I know in these stories, we love men that tell us what we want, but it’s not true so much more often than not. I mean, how many rapists say “she wanted it” and they assumed they knew what she wanted more than she did. (Let’s not even talk about the fact that a woman’s body gets wet for more reasons than just arousal - but books loooooove to say, she’s wet, she wants this.)
I’m telling you: BRAIN MELT!
Still, Jafar did a great job of brief check-ins during their interactions that made this story work.
I also DID NOT like how this story ends. I’m proud of Jasmine for beating the big bad, but she didn’t WANT this life. She said wanted freedom. They talk about the fact that if her father would’ve brought her into the business, it may have helped her need for freedom and belonging, but he didn’t, and so she wanted to be free of it all. She realizes that she can’t be free because she doesn’t know how to function in the world, but SHE KNOWS HOW TO FUNCTION AS A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION QUEEN? How? She may have lived in the previous King’s house but she WASN’T A PART OF THE BUSINESS! And I feel like most criminal kingpins aren’t free. They’re just bound in a different way. So she gave up what was building with Jafar to cage herself (because she does think she gave him up, no matter what happens in the story after. She thinks she has given him up).
I appreciated the shit out of Jafar giving up what he wanted specifically for her.
Book #1 in the Wicked Villain series | 230 Pages | Trope Challenge: -Not on Challenge- |
But a whimper still escapes my lips when he pushes a single finger into me. How many times have I imagined being touched like this? A thousand? A hundred thousand? More. It’s not the same when it’s my fingers driving me to new heights. I’m too soft, too tentative, too me.
- Jasmine, Desperate Measures by Katee Robert
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