⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
Once the Dark Romance Readathon started, I put my current book on hold and looked through my tbr. I decided to finally pick up Untouchable by Sam Mariano. I picked this up thanks to the Dark Romance Readathon and it covered the prompts touch her and you die, public sex, bad ass heroine, and obsessive hero. I also applied it to the prompts forbidden romance for Love Has Sprung and The Last Great American Dynasty (wealthy character) for the Taylor Swift Quarterly Challenge.
After Zoey reported a football player at her high school for groping her, things have taken a turn for the worse. Being at a small town high school in Texas means football is king. She's just hoping to get through senior year at escape to college out of state. When her previous perpetrator corners her in an empty classroom, he threatens to assault her again with two of his buddies. Carter, the quarterback and most popular man in the school and town decides he wants to take the lead. After their encounter, Carter finds that he can't get Zoey out of his head and pushes her to pursue a relationship. Carter has rewired his brain though and doesn't have the normal personality traits one would expect. Zoey is intrigued in trying to work out the puzzle that is Carter and soon finds herself drawn to Carter's darkness.
Wow. This book... wow! Obviously there are quite a few triggers here, the biggest being assault both on and off the page. Now, I'll pass along what I was told. If you can get through the first few chapters, then it really kicks off and isn't quite as distressing. Now for me what was "triggering" was that she didn't really have a support system at all. I really hated that nobody was there for Zoey 100% and even her mother and "best friend" were more frustrated that their reputations were tarnished when Zoey reported the first assault.
Now, I did enjoy how Zoey was really interested in why Carter was acting the way he was and trying to figure out how to get him to act a certain way by changing her behavior. I really enjoyed this and was really swept up in also trying to figure out Carter. Now for me why this wasn't quite 5-stars was I wanted a little bit of give or compromise from Carter. He did nice things for Zoey and was more than willing to manipulate things around them to get things to happen that he wanted, but I wanted some sort of recognition or give. Just one scene to show that he could. I also didn't like that they didn't set up a safe word or something similar. It was talked about a couple of times that Carter likes it rough and he wasn't sure at times if the no was for play or for real. As the reader we know that she's done some research and she mentions it once, but I do wish it would've come up again. Otherwise, I loved the banter between Zoey and Carter.
I'm glad I finally got around to reading Untouchable and totally get the hype. If you are okay with dark romance and can push through the first few chapters it really is a gem. Although, it wouldn't be such a gem without those first few chapters. Here you really go through the work between Zoey and Carter to get that HEA and for me, it was worth it. I'm intrigued to read other books by Sam Mariano and if they are quite as dark as this. I'll definitely add her to my list of darker authors!
Have you read Untouchable?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Untouchable, Sam Mariano, 4.5 stars, 1 day, eBook, 541 pages, published in 2018, indie published
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