This is probably the worst review I have ever given to any book.

TW: RAPE

This is the third, and final book in the Granton University series. I liked the first book (I gave it 3 stars) I gave the second book 4 stars. I honestly loved the second book, so I had high hopes for this one. I have liked Bailey's character throughout the series. She's definitely flawed, but I'm a fan of flawed characters. She made some mistakes. In book two, she took liberties with her best friends relationship and feelings that weren't her place to take, but she did so out of love. I believed her to be a good character.

So, let's get to why I DNF'ed this book and why I think it should just basically not even exist. I am not someone who is at all easily offended. What I am, is someone who thinks that rape and sexual assault should be handled carefully and seriously. Not used as a throw away plot point, or worse yet, written, but not even called rape.

Our character, Bailey goes to a party. She meets Beckett. He's very drunk. I didn't read far enough into the book to see if he was only drunk or if he had been given a date rape drug, but either way, we know that he is at minimum, very drunk. Bailey finds herself in a bathroom and she is too embarrassed to come out of it when she hears Beckett enter the adjoining bedroom. Beckett is followed in by a woman, Melody. Bailey watches as Beckett talks to Melody, letting Melody know that he is not interested in having any sort of sexual encounter with her. However, he is drunk and not really all that able to move well, and Melody pushes him back, onto the bed. BECKETT AGAIN TELLS HER THAT HE DOESN'T WANT TO BE WITH HER. Melody then unzips his pants and performs oral sex on him. Beckett is protesting, but also his body starts reacting to it. This, as everyone should know by now, does not mean that he wants to have this experience. Our bodies are capable of reacting to situations when we have not consented. AND HE DID NOT CONSENT. After he finishes in her mouth, Melody pulls her skirt up and climbs on top of Beckett. He again tells her no. He doesn't want to have sex with her, but she continues. She puts a condom on him. He is too drunk to push her off. He clearly is trying to stop her. This entire time Bailey is in the bathroom and she is seeing what is going on. Melody then climbs on Beckett and RAPES him. Because, make no mistake, it was RAPE. Just because half way through it, he becomes aroused and starts reacting, doesn't mean he wanted to have sex with Melody.

At any point Bailey could have walked out of the bathroom and stopped this. Especially at the beginning. She sees Beckett protesting before Melody even has his pants unzipped, but does absolutely nothing? If the roles were reversed and the character were a man watching as a woman got raped in this way, almost every single review would be a one star. Hell, the book would be chastised. But a man getting raped? Nope. It's just fucking fine? What the hell? How can women be okay with this? For that matter, how can anyone be okay with this?

As far as I can tell, from what I read (and I did skim some of it) it's never even framed as rape. Melody accuses Beckett of rape and Bailey has to decide if she should come forward, because she doesn't want people to think of her as a voyeur? She is more worried about that than the fact that Beckett was fucking raped? Are you kidding me?

The plot of the book seems to be that Melody accuses Beckett of rape and his life goes to shit pretty fast because no one believes he didn't do it. Bailey has to step up and help him. Although, no one in the book seems to think that he actually has been raped. It's more that Melody is an awful person and they want to clear Beckett's name, but Melody doesn't actually pay for her crimes.

I was sickened that someone could write this rape scene, then write it off as just being part of a bigger storyline. And how are we supposed to like a so called "heroine" who, at the very first moment, knew that Beckett didn't want to have sex with this girl, but stood idly by and let it happen? And to believe that they have some sort of great love? To me, it's more they both have a great need for therapy, because they are both clearly fucked up if they think that they have any business being together. Beckett should be dealing with what happened to him and Bailey should deal with what a completely selfish piece of trash she is.

This book had an opportunity to deal with a very real matter. It could have taken something that happens and is often overlooked and brought attention to it. Instead the author chose to go the way that so many people actually do when a man is raped. Totally discounting the fact that men do indeed get raped and violated. That it does affect them. That they are victims of sexual crimes. That they don't have to just be okay.

I have other books by this author on my Kindle. Ones that I have not read yet. I am seriously considering deleting them without reading them. It's really a shame because Ms. Kage did such a good job and took such care with the hard subject of a school shooting in book one and then with the aftermath of the shooting and also the subject of bullying in the second book. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that this was written by the same author.