jesus… how in the ever-loving fuck did i manage to finish this one? i must’ve grown as a person recently, because goddamn, just a year ago i would say fuck this shit at about 5%.



it’s bad. honestly, it’s so, so bad. the writing, the story, the characters. i cannot find one good thing to say about this book right now. goes to show how you can never really trust the ratings. i’m leery of any stories taking place in prison (because so few of them have the facts right), so i admit the bar was set pretty high, but even i didn’t expect how bad it would get.

the writing's simply awful. it’s middle school-level, AT BEST. i feel like his book had no contact with any editor whatsoever. and it needs editing. it needs it ASAP. let’s be generous and forget all the typos, and the their-they're your-you’re mistakes - can find those in some of the best books, too, if the editor was lazy. however, the writing in here is perhaps the worst i’ve had the dubious pleasure of reading. ever. i feel like my eyes are bleeding. it’s chaotic, messy, and all over the place. the writer goes off on tangents - sometimes trying for humor, i think? - like this:

His nurse, Sally, poked her head through the curtain. Her hair was black and curly, and many times Alfie had found strands on his sheets and hoped they were from her head.



seriously? wondering about the nurse’s pubes on his pillow? when he’s just woken up after a car accident staged by his oh-so-dangerous lover, abandoned by the side of the road? seriously, what in the fuck?

at about 20%, i started highlighting - it made the experience a little more bearable, and gave me something to focus on. there’s something for everyone.

mixed metaphors (wound up like a spring ready to explode) were barely noticeable next to gems like these: fumes of desire, lustful bubble, SALIVATED AT THE CROTCH (no joke. i had to read this one twice), his sex hungry body, dirty sound of suction… the list could go on and on and ON. trying SO hard to be hot, it was just ridiculous.

there’s more. The shirt on the floor hissed angrily, His eyes burned and dropped tears, Tia breathed sadly though her nose.



angry hissing shirts, eyes that went and dropped tears, and sad nose breathing. just a few examples of what’s happening in this book.

He was being kidnapped by a man he had never seen before leaving out the completely unnecessary use of passive voice, if he was BEING kidnapped by a man he had seen before as opposed to that other one, it would be acceptable? after confronting this book and emerging at the other end, scarred but victorious, i can safely say that the MC would think so.

the two MCs… i did NOT like them (as well as alfie’s BFF, the sad nose-breather - remember her? she appeared give or take three times, but was annoying as fuck! come to think of it, the supporting characters were no different. the author tried too hard - and that’s a recurring theme in this one - to make them realistic, and got the exact opposite). unlikeable characters rarely are a deal-breaker for me, but combined with everything else, they were the final straw.

alfie was childish, needy, naive (if not plain stupid) and irritating. i get that he was young, but you'd think that growing up in the system would’ve given him some sort of a backbone, right? WRONG. he, and every single one of his idiot coworkers, were about as competent at their job as my 89 yo grandma would be. i’m all for suspension of disbelief, but come the fuck on. it’s not a kindergarten, it’s a fucking prison.

and nate? he was domineering, controlling and arrogant, but i liked him a bit more - maybe because he didn’t appear on every page like the other one? i have absolutely no idea what he saw in alfie, other than his sex hungry bod. but hey, after 10 years of imprisonment one can’t be too picky, eh?

i could go on at length, about how unbelievably low the level of security was (before writing a story that takes place in a prison, DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH!); how irresponsible it was for a guard to let a convicted murderer fondle him in the dark (because of a very convenient power outage) after seeing him ONE FUCKING TIME before that; how stupid it was to let that same convict fuck him with ZERO protection AND FALL ASLEEP IN HIS CELL - WHERE THE FUCK WAS EVERYONE ELSE - but as you can well see, it STILL manages to piss me off, and i’ve already wasted too much time on this… book. i'm done.

( )

Like a piece of music where the rests speak louder than the notes. Very slow burning. In ‘The Freshman’ the simmer is almost more intense than the burn. This book got to me. I only wish there had been an epilogue. ( )

I misjudged this book.
It's dark, sure.
But what makes it dark is the setting and the psychological war that's going on inside Alfie's head. There's no blood and gore and torture, and stuff like that.
Other than that, it's pretty effing romantic! Nate seduced me with his purring "Freshman..." grrr ;P He's very intense.
Alfie is your typical Goody Two-shoes. He follows the rules and compassionate. And loyal, he just doesn't know who to be loyal to, and therein lies the problem. He is different than the other guards, because he doesn't threat them as trash, he sees the human in them and not the animal who did those crimes.
The back and forth between Nate and Alfie was fascinating to watch. How Alfie was trying to figure out if he was being played by the inmate, or if his interest in him is genuine or not.

And did I miss the part where Nate's age was mentioned, cuz I don't know. I put him around his early thirties. Which means there's at least a 12-year age gap.
I'm also not sure if it's possible to hire an 18-year old as a prison guard.
Also there were a few things that didn't make sense, like... shouldn't there be cameras in a prison?
I'm not well-versed in the prison-world, so I don't know these things.

The ending was wrapped up pretty fast, I wouldn't have minded an epilogue.

Overall I enjoyed it a lot. :D Recommended!

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Thank you for the gift, Kristy! I'm really looking forward to reading it. :)