Dark City is just unnecessarily dark. I mean, I get that the world has a lot of rotters out there, but seriously it’s impossible to go through a book that seems to revel in the salacious atrocities committed by men in power on those without.

In the 50 pages that I managed to get through the female characters were all victims of violence - sexual or otherwise - irrespective of age or creed. It’s bad enough the mother of the protagonist deals with domestic violence, which the protagonist witnesses and excuses, but we have another woman who is selling herself to make quotas and the female interest who was sold to her own stepfather when she was a child! Also, the stepfather was the mayor, just great. I could not read any more lurid details about gender-based violence. Too many books and media focus on gender-based crimes, only so far as attempting to make the work edgy, they rarely delve into the psychological aspects or the impact and resilience of the victims themselves. The victims are nothing but plot devices, and I was afraid this book was likely to go down the same route.

Perhaps a more polished book may have held my interest, but when you’re championing evil mafia bosses killing and terrorizing innocent people in the book and combining that with subpar writing and expository text, it’s not a reading experience I look forward to.

Perhaps the book gets better, but it did not pass the Richard and Judy test of a gripping first 50 pages, so I gave up. I just couldn’t bare the thought of reading anymore sexist takes on women’s character arcs. I almost feel like some women authors try and make their books as leery and salacious as possible - there are plenty of reasons why they might feel it is necessary. But this boys’ club mentality in books is unpleasant reading.