3.5 stars 
 One of the things I loved about this book was that it doesn't easily fit into any genre or any typical storyline - it is truly just a story. There is no love triangle, the heroine is not obviously perfect but still so oblivious that she doesn't realize it, not every guy who sees her falls in love with her, no painful cliffhangers, and there is no sugarcoating. 
 Seeing as how there were so many great reviews I was really not all that pleased with the beginning of the book, I honestly thought that the main character gave in to the Seven too easily. SPOILER-------------(they kidnapped her, forcibly stopped her from escaping {not that she could but she didn't know that yet}, recapture her when she does attempt to escape, tie her down, deprive her of sleep and food while pumping who-knows-what drugs into her system for an indefinite amount of time, throw cold water on her when she fails to answer questions appropriately while drugged, etc.) and then a few scenes later she discovers that one of her captors is hot and decides that escaping wasn't all that great of a plan anyway). 
 I can understand why she stayed with them, after all escape was obviously not going to be easily accomplished in her state, but I found it hard to believe that after everything they put her through she didn't offer a bit more resistance to them, even after discovering that the whole scheme involved the godfather that she had never met. I just find it a bit difficult to buy that after being tortured by these people she trusts them enough to cut herself off from any chance of leaving. 
 While I was not impressed with the first half of the book, once I accepted everything that had happened and that she had decided to train with them the story moved fast and was fascinating. 
 Side note: SPOILER I just had a bit of an issue with the whole Shawn thing, Kaitlyn didn't really seem to be all that concerned when no one would believe her about him trying to hurt her, but whenever she did bring up her distrust of him and was frustrated that no one believed her she also didn't bother to inform them about some issues (like him trying to strangle her in the woods) - why would they believe her if she never told them anything? Also, he tried to brand her - can we just pause for a moment and discuss how psycho he has to be forcibly try to carve a symbol onto her body and then a couple of chapters later be obnoxious and try hitting on her (and on that note, who seriously would tell a woman that a seat was available on his lap - how cheesy can you get . . .)? Plus the fact that neither Alex or Micah seemed all that concerned that Shawn had gone from being physically violent with her to suddenly just verbal sexual harassment . . . quite frankly I'm not sure which was worse. 
 It felt like it took a long time for the action to really start and for the story to really pick up steam but once it did, I could not put the book down. I am really excited to start on the second one now, especially seeing as the characters have been established and hopefully the author can just jump into the story the next time around. 
 Some things that did bother me (hence the lower rating) is that the writing was sometimes a bit confusing, I sometimes had to backtrack trying to figure out what was happening. One obvious example of this is the first chapter where I literally though the book had dragons in it for a while but I am now pretty sure she was trying to make a metaphor for an avalanche - but it did confuse me when the dragon was breathing on her. . . . 
 I will say that everything did get better as the story went on, it was just a rough start, which made the book a bit hard to read at first. Another issue I had was just in how quickly the main character got over some of the things that were done to her, maybe it is just me, but I would not be so quick to forgive an organization that kidnapped me, removed my existence from the rest of the world, and tortured me. I was also bothered by some of the inconsistencies within the book, especially since they were small enough issues that they probably could have been taken care of with a bit of careful editing. 
 It was an interesting read, but not a story that will stay with you for a really long time. 
 Spoilers!! 
 Thoughts as I was reading (I only bothered to start doing this half way through): 
 -	Greenhouse test - Okay, I can understand why a lot of people don't like this scene but I can kind of understand where Micah is coming from (maybe I've just read too many Batman comics where he either goes through or doles out extreme training exercises) in that she needs to be able to work with any number of distractions - but the part where Shawn and anyone who happened to be watching the security cameras could watch was a bit creepy. I do love that she found such an inventive solution to the problem - although it did bring up some unpleasant memories of that Hitchock film - ugh. 
 -	Seriously, you hope that the scar that she got while being attacked by your collegue who tried to brand her never heals so that it can remind YOU about how you should never take anything for granted? 
 -	She is still pissed at you for practically raping her in front of a bunch of people, plus you just revealed that you went through all of her private things in her apartment after kidnapping her and you think now is a good time to try and get her to donate the insurance money from her parent's death? Seriously, Micah you are starting to bug me again - plus your little group is starting to sound a bit cultish. 
 -	 I'm confused about how much she can move about on the island with Shawn, at first it seemed as though she could barely turn her own head around and then a day later she was able to rummage through a box of supplies . . . 
 -	I really wish that she had not acquiesced to him in the tub since we all knew that she was going to try to fight him off anyway - oh and the candlestick thing was really disturbing, which is what I am assuming the author was aiming for. 
 -	I really hope that learning that this organization didn't really give her a choice as to whether or not she could join (even if she did not know she would be killed otherwise I still don't see that as a choice) makes her rethink her position on the 'team'; although I can understand that she still sees the other members as her only hope of rescue - but hopefully she will not just forgive Micah automatically