The Curse

Such crap... I mean... there aren't words enough to say how much I hate this book.

This is written to make Jude look like a good guy.
The first half of the book was written to justify Jude's kidnapping Alexa, and showing how much worse a cage she could be in. In reality, she wouldn't have needed to be in any kind of cage. Had Jude not kidnapped her, none of this would have happened.

No, I hate this book, and as so many people have said they only got the second to find out what happened, I am going to tell you the “answer” right away so that you don't need to read this piece of crap. There's a secret organization who infect teenagers with this thing that makes them see into the future, and they do this to be able to sell the services of these kids to highest bidders to be used as weapons or what ever.
Yeah. That's it. Now you know.

So... how is it any different from Jude?
Jude “loves” her.
How do we know? He SAYS so! So it must be true! I mean... he wouldn't want to have sex with this hot 17 years old otherwise, would he? I mean... all the other guys do, but Jude isn't like the other guys. Because... er... He is GENUINELY concerned! One can SEE it in his EYES! Yeah. Sure. Of course he is. Let's just ignore all the other things he said. And especially all the things he did. Like promising he won't hurt her and his goons won't hurt her, but telling her that if she leaves, he'll kill her parents, but, sure, it's her choice, and she's totally free to go at any time. Watching live video on one of the goons beating the shit out of her and dragging her of her hair, not stopping it, and then just finish the guy off. When she begs him not to (because it's her fault. How the f is it her fault?) he tells her that HE won't kill the guy. His goons do. Big difference. And, just see, he tells Ronan to hurt Lexi in this book. Not just not interfering, actually telling her to hurt her. And she's "Oh, that makes sense, of course it's totally fine! I can see why he had to beat me up!" No, it doesn't make any f-ing sense! She's supposed to be a valuable research subject and future money cow. If he beats her into brain injury, how are they going to use her? If they make her fear them, how could they ever trust her to do her job and not trying to find how to run away?Or the beating up the driver because he smiled at Lexi's comment. Oh, sure, he's such a nice, loving and caring guy. Of course he is. Brrr...And, also all those things he made her do under the threat of him doing something to hurt her parents and best friend? All kinds of unnecessary, humiliating things she didn't want to do. Like that crap about the boyfriend. Of course she wouldn't tell him she has a boyfriend, he would go and kill him! Geesh!"Nobody is going to hurt you", he says, and the next day his goon beats her up."I'm not going to kill him", he says. His employers do that."Nothing bad will happen to you as long as you do what I say". She gets kidnapped, abused, humiliated, almost raped, in spite of doing what he said."I promise your parents will be safe". They get killed.And in the end of this book, Lexi is 18 and not married. Somehow I highly doubt she's still a virgin. And she is living in his house, he's supporting her, he follows her to her work, is in the actual room with FBI or what ever, and he is still a crime boss. Yeah. He hasn't stopped his criminal activities, and FBI (or what ever it is) is totally fine for him being in the room when they "interrogate" other criminals. She's totally under his control. And about this control?“The first thing I noticed about you were your eyes. They're incredible.” Jude mumbles irately from where he's standing. Irately... he's angry because a guy gave Lexi a complement. Whom is he going to beat up for that? Nick or Lexi? Or both? He is probably going to accuse her of flirting with other guys. Brrr...(Also, enter Nick. She kidnaps him and Jude threatens to kill him or injure him FOR NO REASON AT ALL. But it's all OK, because... ? Apparently it's OK to capture people and threaten them to answer your questions, because you just need to know!)“A mobster with morals.” The moment the words are out, I instantly regret them. He's always kept that side of him away from me . . . except the time with the driver. . . . and what I see in the visions. (And when he kidnapped you, and when he ordered the execution of his employer for having abused you, and when... *sigh*)“While I'm here, I'm just Jude,” he says not at all fazed by what I said. But I know I shouldn't have said it. “I'm sorry,” I whisper my apology. “I shouldn't have said that about you.” He never apologises to her about anything.

So, at one point the author forgets totally that her “hero” is supposed to be this sadistic criminal who enjoys the power he has over people, who enjoys people being afraid of him. No, she makes them as a normal couple of 17yo girl/25 yo boy. They tease each other, they joke around, they have a relationship with Frank as if Frank was Jude's dad or something like that.
Why? Why the fuck is she treating him as if he was just a guy she's having a crush on? He is no different from Enzo, except that he's young and pretty. He will be Enzo when he's 60. Enzo probably is his grandfather or something.

Also that scene where Lexi teaches Jude some common decency and manners, even when in the first book Margaret made a point of showing how kind and polite Jude was to Frank to show how “good guy” he “really” is.

Just look up checklists on abusive, toxic relationships and “relationship red-flags”.

One can wonder if these authors writing heroines falling in love with abusive, dominating, violent, aggressive, jealous bastards get commission from real life psychopaths for grooming stupid girls into thinking this is romantic and sweet and something to swoon over.

Isn't it so handy that Jude didn't need to kill off her parents, that Enzo did it. How do we know this? Lexi had a vision of what she was supposed to see. How does she know Enzo and Jude don't work together? What if Enzo is Jude's grandfather? He's French. (What would a Frenchman do with an Italian first name, though?) We know Jude's father and mother were killed, but we know nothing about his grandparents. Do we? And how do we know Enzo is dead? Did Lexi actually see Jude kill him, or just put his gun to his head? Like when Ronan said Jude was shot and she just assumed he was dead.
We know this because Jude said so... and we know he isn't lying, because? Mafia bosses don't lie? Jude wouldn't lie to this 17yo he wants to use for his own benefit so much so that he kidnapped her and didn't even try to win her over, like - he could be courting her and ask her to help him as her actual girlfriend, seduce her into it slowly, because if she was his girlfriend she would quickly approve his criminal activities. He really didn't need to kidnap her or threaten anyone, he could have dated her quite openly, and won her over in a totally peaceful manner and get her to help him because they love each other. I mean... just imagine “I'm so grateful to you, you saved my life. Could I offer you a dinner to express my gratitude?” and then he asks her for dates, because she's cute, and because he's pretty and kind and rich generous, she falls for him, and they become a couple, and THEN all this crap happens... can you see how different that would be? Especially if he refuses to use her power for his own benefit, because he's genuinely worried about her, but of course she will.
It would be even better if he was a cop, and in the end of the book she would be studying to become an FBI agent, like he is, and she would be using her powers to help him in his work? Can you just imagine how good this book could have been?

Also, what's this crap about her being a weapon? How the heck would you be able to use a person who can see random event happening a couple of hours before it happens as a weapon? Uh, logic, life is too short to be bothered by such negativity.

How do all these people know about her abilities? How many people would have known if Jude didn't kidnap her and tried to use her?

Even though this crime boss kidnapped [what ever her best friend's name is], she was allowed to go to school unprotected so that Jude could meet her in the toilet and arrange the meeting with Lexi. And everyone was totally fine with that. I have to say that if a disgusting, scary crime boss had abducted me, kept me in a cage and there were a bunch of disgusting, sleazy guys drooling over me, touching me, hurting me and threatening me, I would not be going to school for the rest of the semester, perhaps never. I wouldn't be OK meeting my best friends kidnapper in the school and happily follow him to a rendezvous with my best friend. But no, her friend is totally OK with everything and totally normal bubbly happy go lucky herself. No worries. Geesh.

This girl believes everything, except then suddenly she doesn't. And then she does.
Nobody tells her anything, and she's more or less ok with it, until to the end of the book. Sure, she whines about it, but goes along.
I hate it when the author's need to play have things happen to fit the story, throws out all logic, credibility and continuity.

She keeps whining about everything being her fault. That attitude is so f-ing self-centered AND stupid. Yeah, sure, you are a superhero, but the world doesn't revolve around you. A crime boss has enemies. It's not your fault. People try to kill a crime boss. It's not your fault. He's been killing a lot of people during his short life, some of them might have family and friends who try to pay him back in kind. Every thought of that? No... you have been in his life a month, it's ALL BECAUSE OF YOU.

There's so much gratuitous violence.
Excuse me, Margaret, but PEOPLE CAN DIE OF BEING SMACKED AROUND. They can suffer brain damage.
Concussion shouldn't be used as a handy plot device to get your characters out of the way for the time you need. BEING UNCONSCIOUS FOR MORE THAN A MINUTE IS MOST LIKELY SIGN OF SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG GOING ON. You NEED medical attention, and IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST A MONTH TO RECOVER FROM THAT KIND OF INJURIES.

In the beginning of the first book, she was in an emergency surgery due to a ruptured appendix. That is very, very dangerous, and takes a long time to recover from. AT LEAST A MONTH.
THEN we add the very bad car accident to this, where she got a whiplash injury AND a bad concussion - she smacked her head so hard to the window that she lost consciousness. But did she have even a headache when she woke up? Nope. Apparently her brain is made of rubber.
During these two books, which describe the events of about a month, she was being heavily abused several times, had her nose broken (the doctor did something and it was ok. She didn't even need to wear a bandage on it), was smacked unconscious once more... all the bruises went away in a couple of days. Apparently they didn't just give her the ability to see in the future, but also superquick healing ability. She'll probably live forever. Maybe, if Margaret decides to write more books about her, she'll grow wolverine claws.

And then the last scene of her reading the senator... yeah... senator's wives usually fill the dishwasher themselves. And burning a photo of you having sex with someone absolutely destroys all evidence. Because whoever sent the photo to your wife doesn't have the digital file on their computer, doesn't have several photos of the same event, and cannot possibly print out as many photos as they want to. And strangling your wife with your bare hands doesn't leave any traces for the forensics to find. Absolutely none what so ever.And the scene itself... sure, the 18 years old girl shakes your hand and then turns to the investigator telling him exactly what you did and where they will find evidence and all that... sure. Yeah. That's probably how it would happen.
Uh. It's just so stupid!