The first thing that has to be said about ‘The V Girl’ is the subject matter is definitely not going to be to everyone’s tastes. It comes with strong recommendations for over-18s only and although I don’t generally agree with this practice, in this case I think it is prudent.
When I first came across this book on NetGalley I was really intrigued as to how the author would manage the subject matter. The fact that it clearly states this is set in an America of the future where rape and sexual slavery is legal means you go into it knowing it will not be anything other than a challenging read.
It was certainly a challenging read for me, for a number of reasons.
When we first meet Lila we are told that she is desperate to lose her virginity before the soldiers come and she runs the risk of being selected and having her virginity forcibly taken from her. Her attempts to achieve this start with an attempted seduction of her best friend, Rey. The way this was described felt very close to a description of the very thing she was trying to avoid.
From there on in we have to contend with Lila’s obsession with the mysterious Prince Alexsey. I understand that this is meant to be the ‘romance’ of this coming-of-age novel, but I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t believe in either character particularly, and found myself frustrated by their relationship and the way it played out.
While I found the writing about the emotional impact of the situations these characters often found themselves in touching, I really did not like the level of detail given. It’s an unflinching look at a very unpleasant subject, but I felt the writer was taking the theme of voyeurism a little too far on so many occasions. This was particularly noticeable in the scenes involving the characters of Duke and Azalea, and the awful account of the Selection towards the end of the book.
My main grip with the novel though is my view that the writer couldn’t decide if she was writing a hard-hitting dystopian novel or an erotic fantasy. The number of times I was stifling giggles at the over-the-top writing regarding Lila and Alexsey’s sexual relationship undercut the impact of the more sombre focus of the remainder of the novel for me.
Having read so many glowing reviews of this novel I’m really wondering what I’ve missed!
A difficult book to rate.