What to say about Scripped without giving too much away? I really have to think on this because I don’t want to spoil this book for anyone brave enough to try it.
This was a hard book for me to read. Normally, if you see me read something slow, it’s because I’m having a hard time with some element or character in the story. It’s rare that I read slow because I’m “savoring the flavor.” But no, this book features not one, but two themes that trigger my personal problems. Many times I had to put my ereader down, clutch my chest and just think, “Breathe, okay?” Seriously, if I hadn’t already read and loved two other books from the same author, I’d have never made it past chapter 2 of this book.
Summing up the plot, Jonah Gray is an athlete in a dysfunctional family who leaves his parents’ cabin to get away from his arguing parents. In the woods, he stumbles across the Borderlands, the meeting point between our world and the fae world. He’s found by Sela, who is very eager to take him back to her town. Jonah is put under a spell that leaves him confused, and so he’s led into a trap, and into a life of being tied up and cut. And THIS is why I had so much trouble reading the book. Theme one that freaked me out was Jonah being owned as property, and having no control over his own life. Theme two is being tied up. Both of these themes are recurring, though I won’t spoil the story by saying why Sela is using him.
Eventually Jonah finds a way to leave the town, but he remains closeted in more meanings of the word than I can describe without spoilers. I hurt for Jonah, knowing personally his self-loathing and his sense of being a broken person for many years. I understood his feelings of being unworthy of love, and that sense of connection made me wish for something better to happen. But this is a horror story, and the ending is more in line with that dark genre than with my wishes for a happy ending.
So, this is rough book for me to get through, and I think saying I enjoyed it is perhaps a long stretch of the word. But I cared about Jonah so much that I couldn’t quit reading, and that to me says something about the quality of the writing. So I give Scripped 4 stars and recommend it to fans of horror and dark fantasy who are looking for an unflinching and ugly look at what happens when someone wanders off the beaten path and into the clutches of the fae. I’d just warn people with bondage or control issues that this book is very triggery. Like, I had to put it down and breathe slow to avoid risking hyperventilating from panic attacks. It’s still a powerful read, and I’m glad I finished it.
