A bit too extreme for my tastes. And the lack of consent on his part was not very sexy, even though it was understandable under the story's premise.
Interesting view into Jonathans backstory though

Let's be honest here, as a standalone book, this wouldn't have amounted to much. Even as part of a series you have to admit it is a pretty weak first book. The whole Brotherhood seems to be made up of Wrath, Zhadist and a bunch of muscleheads that don't have their own personality.
What's with their names by the way? Wrath, Zhadist, Phury, Vishous, Tohrment and... Darius? What the hell's all that about?
Even so, the storyline itself was pretty nice and the POV characters in this book are pretty well-rounded and multi-layered, which made me hopefull for the rest of the series.
Let's hope the writer will be better able to flesh out the rest of her cast.

Bye Wrath and hello Rhage. And apparently he's already forgotten, because there's barely any mention of him or Beth anywhere in this book. However, the other members of the cast were fleshed out quite a bit, so that I was at least able to figure out who was who in the Brotherhood. It's still not quite there compared to other books I've read, but better than the first book by a long shot.
Also, Rhage is amazing. Total boyfriend material if it weren't for Mary and the small fact that he's fictional.

By now I'm pretty sure J.R. Ward isn't as much telling a story as just purely writing down what the characters are doing. However, it is also pretty clear that her viewing glass is either somewhat murky or the images are scrambled, because continuation errors start popping up. As the list of words at the beginning of the book keeps going, it's also pretty clear she's building the world as she goes. Sort of like laying tracks in front of a runnig train. Alls fine and good, but make one mistake and you have a big, ugly mess on your hands.
As both the story and the world continue to grow I can totally feel myself being sucked in with it.
Also, Zhadist is completely adorable in a scary kind of way.