When An Alpha Purrs

Writing this review in parts, as I think I'll have an easier time doing that than trying to put all my thoughts together only at the end of the book.

This is the book that was chosen for my local book club by our members, unanimously. We wanted to read some trashy romance (a genre I am very familiar with, while the others are not), something lighter than our previous read (The Family Roe by Joshua Prager). Talk about a tonal shift.

Read along with my notes here. Author has my full permission to use them for spelling and grammar mistakes, if they'd like (editors, especially good ones, are expensive, I understand completely)!

CHAPTERS 1-8
Let's address the elephant in the room. These books, while often written by AFAB people (cis women usually, as far as my experience goes), they are somehow written in the form of the Male Gaze. Arik (which our club agreed is the least sexy name possible, next to Keith) is a misogynist pig-lion, Kira's mother is apparently all for her daughter being sexually harassed and assaulted, and Hayden has more chemistry with Arik than Kira.

All of that is pretty standard for these kinds of novels. No shame in it, as that's pretty much what you sign up for when you read a romance novel, even as far back as Romeo and Juliette. Anyone who's going to shame the author or her readers for enjoying this, well, you don't have my support in the slightest. I do with trigger warnings were a thing for books, but I digress.

So far, so expected. Kira makes a weirdly fatphobic remark (it's self-deprecating, granted, but the way it's phrased feels forced-- thirty pounds overweight? Big deal), a weird remark about "I'm special but not in the hearing voices kind of way, lol I'm so quirky :3" and, of course, this neither follows A/B/O dynamics NOR lion pride dynamics. Usually I see wolves written this way, which was at least fitting of the science we had on them two decades ago. Lion males are basically just bicycles and baby-makers for the pride. I figure that's a deliberate choice, though, and not a lack of understandings the basics of lions.

CHAPTERS 9-13
I do not, and never will, understand the cis female erotica author urge to not use words like "pussy," "cunt," "vulva," or similar. You (general you, not this author specifically) are writing PORN. You are writing pornographic material that is meant to be titillating, unapologetically sexual, and "steamy." I'm not sure why those words get replaced with "channel," "vent," "lower lips," (admittedly that one's not to bad if used sparingly), and "nethers." Is there some idea that we're not writing/reading a glorified porno? Is it unsexy to the average cis woman to use those words?

Maybe it's unfair to say "cis women." Cis men writing romance do this, too. Maybe trans and GNC people are just more willing to call it like it is? This isn't so much shade to the author as an observation.

Anyways, Kira has a weird public fingering session in Arik's car (hey, did you notice their names are palindromes? I didn't, until someone pointed it out) after a similarly uncomfortable and awkward scene where he's doing some heavy petting in a restaurant while the waiter wants to die. Hate-fucking is an extremely fun thing to write and read, imo, but this isn't written as hatefucking. It's... maybe sensual? As if they're already lovers, not strangers. It feels awkward and stilted because these characters have no chemistry except for their inexplicable attraction to each other (which I'd also be fine with, admittedly, if it was more of a plot point. Sex pollen and "soulmates" can be hot!).

After this is when we get the reveal of Gregory, her "psycho ex," being in town. He writes "bitch slut" in blood on her door... his blood, apparently? Because lion-shifted Arik knows immediately that it smells like lycan (wolf). I was kind of surprised, but in hindsight, I shouldn't have been. Another member of our book club guessed it first, and I made a remark like "that'd be to much plot." But hey, I love to be proven wrong!

Sadly, for the next... however many chapters, nothing happens with that. We're only 60%ish through the story, though, so plenty of time for the murder that Arik is going to commit. Oh, did I mention that within 48 hours of knowing this woman, he kidnaps her, claims he is GOING to have sex with her, and that she's owned by him now (in the primal sense, not the slave sense, which the author tries to make VERY clear with some... rather stilted dialog, admittedly). Nevermind that being owned for sex is, by definition, sex slavery (and whether or not its consensual has yet to be explicitly determined). Arik also then tells Kira, practically verbatim, that he is okay with killing and, potentially, has killed before.

Fine for a lion-shifter, but for a human? This should terrify Kira. She barely flinches at this, instead saying "Don't get your hands dirty, he's not worth it." So she's OKAY with his admission to potentially previous murders? After 48 hours of knowing him? If this setting was different, like a cult, post-apocalypse, or similar high-stakes environments, I wouldn't care. But it isn't. And this is glossed over without developing further chemistry between the two (besides sexual chemistry, which they apparently have in spades).

So Arik manipulates her into his car, kidnaps her, takes her to his home, and then his mother says all kinds of nasty things to her without so much as a "hey how are you." Yeah I know people like that exist, I've met them. Thing is, Arik decides "Well, this is gonna happen anyways, might as well." As if the time and place of this happening doesn't change the context? As if having a discussion with his mom later about what is going on to contextualize the entire thing is off the table. It's like a toddler bringing a frog in the house without permission just to see his mom scream. It's honestly hard to read. Arik's immaturity isn't endearing in these instances, it's infuriating. I'd expect this behavior from a canine-shifter!

As of chapter 13's end, Kira and Arik had sex. It's not written terribly, but I still lament the use of the word "channel" to describe her pussy/vagina/vulva/any other word for it.

Chapters 14 and 15 are pretty unremarkable, admittedly. Some banter, an extremely disappointing shower quickie, and then Kira makes a "daring" escape. That's right, Arik locks her in! Digital, fingerprint locks. Honestly, that sounds pretty cool at first, but it'd be terribly inconvenient if you lose power. Or injure your hands. Or the batteries run out. Etc, etc.

Oh! And he calls Kira's nipples (or her tits? I think nipples) "berries." Worst thing in that chapter, admittedly.

In chapter 16, Kira DOES manage to get out, but she's ambushed in the elevator by some of Arik's cousins. In this very short scene, the author makes a few weird quips about people with piercings and dyed hair. I say "the author" and not "Kira" because, well, it's not Kira's inner monologue. "Kira" barely has one; it reads like the author's thoughts ON the book, rather than a person with independent thoughts and feelings.

She gets captured by Arik's female relatives, and I'd say this is where the book passes the Bechdel Test, but only just barely. And they talk about hair, specifically, when not talking about Arik's relationship with Kira (because Kira has had no real say in it, admittedly). I'd let the hair thing pass because she's a hair stylist, but since no other part of this book so far has survived the Bechdel Test... I've decided not to.

CHAPTERS 17-21 (end)
The author REALLY does not like those "blue haired liberals!!1!" or whatever. The first thing she describes in chapter 17 is a teenager with dyed hair, and how Kira says she should "cut it short and dye it brown." The teen's response? "[She] wants to make me look respectable and pretty. It's just wrong!"

I don't say this to authors very often, but: fuck you for that. That's such shit. I wouldn't flinch if I felt like it was the opinion of the CHARACTERS, but it very clearly is not. No, don't go "Haha, my humor is just to POLITICALLY INCORRECT and TWISTED for you!" Humor has to be involved for something to be funny. Stating an opinion isn't a joke (though the opinion itself sure is). And, before anyone asks; no, I don't dye my hair and I'm not into piercings. Shouldn't matter, but, y'know.

We also get a fun kick below the belt about furries, a weird moment where Kira mentions kinbaku and then proceeds to explain what that is, which feels very weird and out of left field, and other such... weird little jabs that don't feel like they're coming from the characters. If the author wanted to write an opinion piece on how much she hates various subcultures, she could have just done that on her blog or something.

After nothing happening for 19 chapters, FINALLY, we meet Gregory. He's an emo boy who spontaneously regrew his hair after shaving it (no, really, it's specified that he shaved his head earlier on in order to trick the Pack, but when we see him less than 24 hours later he... has his hair back?). He's also described as very good looking, which is hard to imagine when the author describes him as an early 2000s teenage emo boy.

He kidnaps her (after she escapes her other kidnapper, Arik), and then FINALLY there's a confrontation. And... nothing happens. We get maybe 7 or 8 pages of him calling her "bitch slut," changing into a wolf and fighting Arik's lion, licking her neck and saying he's going to rape her in front of him (finally, a character that's actually just obvious about how evil he is! Arik getting ass pats throughout the entire book for all the psycho shit he does. Again, I REALLY LIKE fucked up romance, but the way it's presented is just so... "our main character can do no wrong!!1!").

And then Arik kills him in front of her and rapes Kira.

No, really. He kills Gregory, gets a boner, then FORCES HIMSELF ON KIRA while she is still traumatized from the whole shifter thing and the MURDER and the TWO KIDNAPPINGS. Look, if the author just said it like it was, I wouldn't care. If this was Stockholm syndrome, I wouldn't care. But it's just presented as Arik being fun and quirky and Kira having turbo-sex pussy.

I have yet to read the last chapter. This has been hell.


Congratulations! Eve Langlais has been slotted onto our groups "Banned Authors" list! She gets to stand among the ranks of Gary L.M. Martin, J.K. Rowling, Anne Rice, and Illy Hymen. We're honestly pretty impressed. As a person who read an absolutely ridiculous amount of fucked up romance novels when I was a teen, I don't think I've ever encountered one that is quite so... bad. Sad, too, since some of her other titles looked very interesting!

Ah well, c'est la vie!