Survival Games by J.E. Taylor

Survival Games Reviews

• 
  JAN

  
• 
  AH

  Since I’ve joined Goodreads, I’ve been lucky to win quite a few books. I always try to enter contests for books that I would not usually go out and buy. Survival Games is one such book. This book took me out of my comfort zone, away from the paranormal romance genre that I am used to. Survival Games is not an easy book to read; the subject matter is dark and disturbing. This book is intended for adult audiences only.
  
  Survival Games is the story of Jessica Connor. Jessica is kidnapped from her life, her death is staged, and she awakens in a hellish scenario. She is held captive by kidnappers who want to “break” her so that she will appear in their x-rated films. She is repeatedly raped and tortured.
  
  Jessica’s captor, Ty, begins to take an interest in her. She confounds his attempts to break her and remains defiant and uncooperative. At some point, she realizes that to survive, she will have to play the game with her captors.
  
  I did enjoy Jessica’s psychic connection to her seven year old son Eric. Eric never believes for a moment that his mother has died. He has conversations with her, he appears to her, and he has the ability to heal her wounds. This connection with Eric made the story readable.
  
  Jessica suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. At one point, she makes the realization that she has fallen in love with her captor. “I love him. God help me. I’m in love with a killer.” At that point, I felt like flinging the book across the room, yet I understood why she said this. Jessica had grown to depend on Ty to protect her from his sadistic brother.
  
  I found this book was difficult to read. The captors were cruel, sadistic, and depraved. Jessica was forced into some very horrific scenarios. Yet, the story was compelling and well written. I had to keep reading.
  
• 
  11811 (Eleven)

  Unbelievable protagonist - her behavior in general. Basically torture porn without a deeper meaning. The writing was acceptable but the story wasn't there. Or it was but I couldn't tell because it was veiled by all the torture porn.
  
  Btw... I'm a big fan of
  The Girl Next Door,
  Let's Go Play At The Adams', etc... so I don't tend to shy away from this stuff. I just thought it wasn't worth my time.
• 
  VLynch

  Omg! this book will totally grab your attention and make you forget about everything else. I actually burned dinner last night as I was too busy reading this book. ***Warning*** Trust me when I say this book is NOT for the weak. There is a lot of torture and sex in this book. But somehow I could not help to fall in love with the characters. Jessica is a strong willed woman who is kidnapped but assumed dead by her family. Except her 8 year old son knows she is alive, he keeps communicating with her while she is being tortured, and held in a prison. Ty is on of the most unusual villians I have ever come across, somehow I actually fell in love with this evil a$$hole. Unbelievable. :( J.E. Taylor is a mastermind when it comes to writing I already starting the next book in this series. Love her books!
• 
  Stephanie

  This is a VERY dark, gross, disturbing, thrilling, scary, bloody, yucky, mind blowing book! It was all over the place! I got confused, scared, grossed out, turned on by Ty, angry, and frustrated. I almost gave up on this because of the story constantly switching gears. But my patience paid off in the end. Now I want to read the second one. But... I think I need some rainbows and sparkles and some furry cuddly creatures for a little bit.
  Highly recommend for the iron stomachs out there that love to be grossed out.
• 
  Ashley

  This book. How can I even attempt to summarize this book in so few a words? J.E. Taylor is a literary mastermind. This novel, starting out as a torture/erotica novel, didn't give me high expectations, to be quite honest. But, the story got me hooked, and the characters enthralled me. Jess and Ty have such an intense chemistry and such an intense connection that it is quite easy to get lost in the nuances of what is going on in the story and forget all the terrible things that are done, and to root for the monster Ty thinks that he has become. Halfway through this book, I bought the other two. If you have a weak stomach, this book is definitely not one that I would recommend-however, if you can handle a psychological thriller with just enough sci-fi to keep it interesting, and plenty of steaminess, then you will thoroughly enjoy this book. I know I did, and I cannot wait to read what else J.E. Taylor has up her sleeve.
• 
  Monique

  
  I just finished this book and am eager as all get out to start the next one,but first I must give credit where credit is due and J.E. Taylor deserves a stadium full of applause.As I stated in "Fallen",I had read every single book in the "Steve Williams series" and I was curious about Chris and Jessica's beginnings.Horrific isn't even close to what Jessica went through at the hands of Ty and his stepbrother Frank (especially Frank).Jessica overcame such tremendous brutality while being held hostage and the whole time she managed to retain the ability to love and forgive,she is a heroine that is not like any other.This series,like all the other series that I have read by J.E. Taylor are brilliant and very habit forming,I will not be able to rest until I have completed this series and all the rest that involve this unique family.
• 
  Deava101

  I have always refused to write reviews but this book warrants one. Though the summary of this book didn't sit well with me, the story blew me completely away. Jessica is kidnapped by these brutal, sadistic men (Frank, Ty and Chris) but it wasn't long before Ty won me over. His protectiveness towards Jessica and his brother was touching.Jessica's son Eric "the little angel" was adorable and brought hope to this difficult time of her life. A pain settled deeply in my chest as the characters made you hurt for them, cry for them and cry with them. This book open my eyes to the realistic of these disgusting underground industries, the thin line between love and hate and how far someone would go to protect the one they loved.
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  Melissa

  This book was disturbing and nerve wracking, I felt like I was living the nightmare situation in this book. I had to know how it ended though and it compeled me to keep reading. In one way that's good because you want a book to keep you engaged but on the other hand this is the type of thing that I shy away from in life. I am not a fan of horror at all. It makes me uneasy how people find it enjoyable to write or create something so disturbing. Then grammatically, there were a lot of mistakes that drove me nuts. Really it's a 3 1/2 stars but you can only give whole stars.
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  Rachael

  This is one of the most enthralling books ive ever read... the Brutal and intense passion and connection of the main characers is what kept me reading because trust me there were alot of dark, disturbing facets in the secret reccesses of each persons mind being displayed raw on every page! It was the type of book that made me wonder what was going on in everyones mind around me. I couldnt put this book down, read in one sitting... after reading I bought the second and third book :)
  
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  Kerry

  omg was never one who was interested in books like this but this one had me at the edge of my seats. reading this book i experienced all different kind of emotions one after the other. like my god what is wrong with these people and for some reason i believe her husband betrayed her and her son by not believing and that grief therapist i dont like her at all. but so a nice book i pray i dont ever meet a man like frank in my life.
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  Lori Petticrew

  I just so happened to find this hidden in the depths of my kindle. Hiding and waiting .
  Reading the title i thought, "oh, another one of the late night downloads looking for a soft erotic tale to read." WRONG!!!!!!!! Wow. this story grabbed and pulled me for a ride I was not ready for.
  Now, this is not something i would normally search out to read, but after reading this and falling in love with TY and jessica....I downloaded book two and three from ibooks!
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  Rebecca Nolan

  This was a free amazon kindle book that completly blew me away. From the intro to the end this book had me guessing. yes the some of the sex scenes are graphic but it doesnt take away for the underlying love story that is there. I love a story that I cant put down and this is one of those for me. This book is by far the best kindle book i have read thus far in the horror section.
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  Paula

  Purchased this book after winning one of this author's other books in this series, and she was generous enough to send me two books in the series. I just had to get the first book of the series!
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  Becca

  Deeply disturbing, this book is so wrong on so many levels... Probably why I liked it!
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  Becky

  This book was dark, disturbing, and made me cringe a lot, but the overall story was fantastic. I love that there's two more books !!
• 
  Nadia

  Punctuated by long stretches of boring inaction, broken only by varying scenes of torture porn or psychic/mystical dealings, I found the story to be all over the place and inconsistent. Kidnapped, tortured and made to kill, the main character had the power to escape early in the story, yet chose not to. The story ended with an unsatisfactory resolution, and left me with many questions. Overall the imagination and potential in the story was there, but it never came to fruition
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  Tony Ryan

  This was awful. Badly written, incomprehensible plotting, irritating characters. I had to skim over a lot of our as it was just infuriating to read! I only skimmed through to the end as I wanted to see if everyone died. Unfortunately they didn't.
• 
  Nadine Bookaholic

  Length: 391 pages