no amount of small kindnesses could convince me that Remo didn’t rape Serafina. which was just the author’s excuse to try to get the readers to like Remo if Serafina liked him. Serafina clung to every nice thing he did (which was part of his plan to manipulate her), convincing herself he wasn’t as bad as people and he let on. I didn’t believe she was in love with him, she just latched onto the small moments of normalcy between them and twisted them into something warped and mildly appealing to ease her discomfort with the situation and convince herself the situation wasn’t as awful as it was.Įverything was just very Stockholm Syndrome-esque. but the handling of Serafina’s abduction was just tactless and romanticised, when in reality the whole ordeal would be harrowing, heartbreaking and downright disturbing). (and i know these series’ are fabricated in the realm of the unrealistic, but some aspects, such as Kiara’s rape in the second book was handled really well, and i loved her and Nino. she just romanticises the entire traumatic ordeal to fit her storyline, so the whole thing was unrealistic in that sense. he continuously threatens, objectifies and degrades her, and i honestly would have expected more trauma from a victim of kidnap, but i think that was the issue- Reilly didn’t even portray Serafina as a victim and glossed over the realities of someone being held captive. but honestly it did just feel like Remo raped her and used small acts of kindness to manipulate her. Id assumed things weren’t what they seemed from Dante’s POV. and i wanted to see how things ACTUALLY went down between Serafina and Remo after reading everything from Dante’s POV first. i read Bound by the Past first so i knew the general gist of this book so it piqued my interest before id even started this series. The whole book made me sooooo uncomfortable. all the Falcone men are trash- but not you Nino baby, ily. but this book is one of my thirteen reasons why.

Now, a disclaimer: im not in anyway shitting on people who enjoyed this book.

Cora reilly remo falcone