2 out of 4 stars
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The Bonding by Imogene Keeper is a romance novel which tells the story of a bond formed between two people Tam and Nissa. Whereas Tam is a tribal warrior from one planet, Nissa is a princess from another. This novel explores the high and low of the eternal bond between the two characters and also portrays the internal struggle both of them suffer with it.
The story portrays beautifully the difference in the environment as well as the flora and fauna of the two different planets. It also shows how desperate the inhabitants of Tam's planet were for women as the females have gone extinct from that planet. Even though the book revolves around saving Nissa's planet and its inhabitants, the main theme of the story is lust.
Though the book is classified in the romance genre, in my opinion, it should be classified as sexual. Not erotic but sexual. I felt this because as soon as Tam found Nissa suspended in the space in an orb, his first thought was sexual gratification. Before showing curiosity on her circumstances after he spotted that there was a female in the orb, his thought was "Oh Wow! A woman". It created quite a primitive image of Tam's character and not at all appealing.The author could have fabricated his character better before immediately jumping to paint his strong sexual urges vividly. I also found it quite appalling that while Nissa was sick and unconscious, all Tam could think was about sex. However, his character evolved after a while into a protective and dependable warrior who could go to any length in order to protect his mate and her interests. Nissa's character had more substance in the novel. Though blinded by her lust originating from the bond created between her and Tam, she did not forget her duties towards her people. The agony she felt for her people was palpable and at times reached to the reader's heart. She was so bound by duty that she broke the eternal bond between herself and Tam and accepted the immense suffering immensely both physically and emotionally.
The story then became very emotional and the struggle of both the characters is felt strongly by the reader. It makes the reader wonder whether the love for the community is worth more than the love between the two individuals. Does duty always come first and is it worth so much heartbreak?
There is also a side character in the novel that came out very beautifully created and the story would have been incomplete without him. One such character is Tam's friend Ajax, who stood by him at all the times and helped him. However other characters lacked the creativity and did not stand out in the story.
Though the novel has its twists and turns, I was bored in the first half because every page I turned there was an excessively graphic sexual scene. It became so tiresome after some time with the same overused words and phrases that I wanted to skip some of these parts. The book lacked novelty and was full of overused words and scenes. The ‘F' word was repeated throughout the book. It also had more than a fair share of dirty words and very graphic details of sexual violation of the heroine. There was a serious lack of intelligent conversation between the two main characters of the story.
There were also some unfamiliar words used throughout the book to justify that the story is about aliens. But on closer inspection, I found out that they were not unfamiliar but just a jumbled version of English. For example, ‘eeffoc' that represents coffee and ‘akdov' that is used for vodka in the book. After finding out these words I could not stop myself from wincing at the lack of imagination and creativity on the author's part.
Overall I found the book passable. The story has its own ups and down. The emotional struggle of the characters is heart-wrenching and makes one wonder how they are going to make it. I could not find a single editing or typing mistake in the novel. I intended to give it a rating of 2.5 but since this is not possible, I rate this book 2 out of 4. I have reduced one star for its lack of novelty and the other one due to overuse of cliché-ridden phrases and excessive graphic sexual scenes in the book. In my opinion, the author could have done a better job with the plot and the characters. However, the book holds a fascination for the readers who like to read alien stories and their cultures and they may enjoy this novel.
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The Bonding
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