Book Review: The Prisoner by Sara Allyn

I received this book from the author for an honest review.

Genre: Aliens like to keep human women as pets and no one likes to talk about the men.

Brief Summary: Maria gets abducted by aliens. They try to teach her manners while stripping away human rights! Here is a link if you are interested.

Rating: 3/5

Warnings:

Review: 

This was a hard book for me to rate. The plot was intriguing and I liked the character of Maria. The interactions between characters was done, I think, well. I liked that a lot of the ideas of the book, such as social etiquette and the reasoning the Pegaseans (aliens) had for doing what they do made me think. A lot of it was horrifying. It summaries it to this: They kidnap human women to take the place of their version of dogs. I’m just gonna let that sink in for you.

In a science fiction book, that’s interesting! It’s striking and terrible and you wonder where it’s going to go. Maria, the main character, is given to Orook who is her keeper. (The Pegaseans go out of their way to say “Oh no! YOU HAVE CHOICE. YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BE REMATCHED WITH A KEEPER.”, by the way.) Orook isn’t impressed by humans. He thinks they’re stupid. …I’m tempted to say his opinion doesn’t really change by the end of the novel. 

I mean, the whole idea of the Pegaseans is that you have to earn your way. If you can prove yourself capable, you get privileges. And can I say Pullmoo is the type of mastermind I want to be? I wouldn’t call her evil. I don’t think she is. She’s just…funny and practical. 

The book held my interest to the end. 

Now, why did I give it three stars? 

A few reasons. The first is that there is a LOT that gets covered in the book. A lot. From the whole Maria gets kidnapped to the Pegaseans trying to come to peace with the Vocunines (dogs that can talk and hold things) to the talking tree thing. I’m not even covering the side plots of Maddie and Etmook or Pullmoo and all her shenanigans. It’s a lot. It feels like details were skipped to get all this plot in. I didn’t get a real sense of what the alien world was like. There are some descriptions for settings and people but it felt…incomplete? I would have been okay for some scenes to be cut out to really get a sense of place. 

Second, Maria and Orook’s relationship…it felt a bit rushed. Now, I’m not going to go into a full analysis about why the relationships in this book were a little wonky for me. Just know it boils it down to my own morality thinking “Can someone held in what amounts to soft captivity really have true feelings for their keepers?”. Also, I feel Maddie and Etmook were a more interesting love story. 

I am curious to see what happens next. It is more likely than not I’ll read the next book. 

May you get lost in a book,

Chrissy