Okay, I'm going to begin this with, it's more of a 3.5 rating, leaning towards a 4. 
 Secondly, content/trigger warning: Rape, abuse, slavery 
 Now, Captive Prince is the first book in a trilogy, I first heard about this book when I was trying to find LGBTQ+ books for my LGBTQ+ year and this was on the list since the characters were queer (I think specifically gay and bisexual characters? That's all I seemed to notice, plus maybe asexual but I'll get to that-). 
 I'm not going to deny I enjoyed this, because I really, honestly did, the description was amazingly beautiful and you could imagine every little bit of the kingdoms and the characters. However I can't and won't deny that there are many problematic themes, such as rape and abuse. 
 I enjoyed this book due to the fact that it drew me in and made me keep reading to find out what happened next. While I disagree with rape and abuse and it makes me completely uncomfortable, it seemed like there was a specific reason for this, the reason I won't be explaining in case I'm somehow correct and spoil it. (You're welcome to message me and discuss it with me.) 
 I also feel like I understand why Laurent won't have sex and has it in for Damen, but again, I'm not revealing this. (And once again, message me if you want to discuss it.) 
 While I see a lot of people saying this is a romance, it honestly isn't. Laurent's going to have to do a lot to atone for the shit he did in order for me to happily ship him and Damen together. 
 As a final note, I like how the rape and abuse isn't justified or acceptable at all. I like that the author has used Damen to express how disgusting and awful rape, abuse and even pedophilia is. She's not excusing it or accepting it, and honestly, if Damen had not mentioned how horrible those things were and the author just seemed to brush it off like "Eh, that's just how they do things around here, it's normal for them so I accept it and you gotta accept it too" I would have put the book down and destroyed it.