[A quick note: I saw this series in Barnes and Noble the other day on a “TikTok“ famous shelf. And of course, the cover immediately caught my eye. I’m a sucker for gorgeous covers and lets face it, these are so pretty! I didn’t know much of anything about this series, other than I had heard it mentioned once or twice on Bookstagram. Given that I knew the books were short, and that they were marketed as romance, I figured I would give them a try. I didn’t realize exactly how naughty they would be. So…fair warning! Also, I did a little research into the series. Turns out that it was so popular it got picked up by a publisher who is redoing ALL the covers. Currently only the first two have received their makeovers + bonus content. The third is set for July. There are some 22 books in this series. I only read about 8 before I got bored. But they’re perfect if you want to escape and like SPICE x 100. I’ll also say the covers are better than the books. Hah!]
Okay…where to begin. If you want STEAMY with very little plot? This is the book for you. It’s what I’d call an absolute trash read. It was addictive, and yet, there was so much wrong with it. BUT, I couldn’t put it down! The writing was…meh. The scenes were barely fleshed out. The overall plot was pretty simple. The characters didn’t have a whole lot of depth, barely any, actually. There weren’t really any character arcs.
I don’t think any of that was the point of the story, was it? It was literally…porn that was written instead of filmed?? Something like that.
But, okay, there were a few things I liked. The way the two main characters, Georgie and Vektal were portrayed, for example, each with their own POV. Georgie had a more advanced thought process to her POV, while Vektal was presented with a more simplistic “barbarian” way of thinking. I’d say, caveman, almost? Animalistic, almost? And wasn’t that the point? I mean, the freaking title is Ice Planet Barbarians so….I also liked the overall premise. A group of females aged 22 are kidnapped by aliens and stranded on a hostile planet where they’ve got to get rescued by locals who want to mate them. I mean, as far as setting up a smut read, that sort of nails it. Plus, the read is short and simplistic. Something that’s perfect for passing the time and sucking you in (if you enjoy this sort of thing).
Tropes to be found here: The mate trope, obviously. Insta love (that goes hand in hand with the insta-mate). Damsel in distress. Stranded on a hostile planet. And I could go on…
Obviously there were tons of problematic aspects. I can imagine any self-respecting female would see plenty of issues here. The one that bothered me most, strangely enough was the pregnancy aspect. Spoiler warning: Georgie is shacked up with her barbarian “mate” for less than a week before she discovers that she’s pregnant. Let’s look at the timeline for a quick sec. Humans, in reality, have a very short window where they can get pregnant. It ranges from 24hours to 5 days during the gestation period. Which also happens to generally happen in the middle of the cycle. It’s EXTREMELY rare for a human woman to get pregnant a few days before her period. But how, might you ask, does Georgie know she’s pregnant? Because she’s late for her period by a few days! And heaven forbid she’s NEVER late.
Uhm…..you can’t be more than a couple days late to know your pregnant, can you?? And if that’s the case, then you would have had to get pregnant maybe one or two days before your period was ACTUALLY supposed to start. Which is…almost literally impossible. So….huh???? Given that she and Vektal are ONLY together for one week, none of this seems feasible at all. I’m sorry, but I could rant on and on about how this had me rolling my eyes.
This could have been handled so much more elegantly. After all, Georgie visits the tribal healer who confirms her pregnancy after she assumes it based off of being late. There should have never been an “I’m late” declaration. The tribal healer should have been the one to break the news all along. Because THAT would have been realistic. And so easy too. How did an editor not catch this?!
Anyway, that was just a taste of the overall issues. But hey, I said it was a trash read and it is. There’s a reason it’s sold so many copies and people love it. So, I’m not expecting a masterpiece here. *shrug shrug*
If I was rating this for quality alone, it would get maybe 2 stars…maybe. If I rated it for enjoyment, it would get more like 4. So…I’m going to settle somewhere in the middle? Did I pick up the second book immediately after? I’m embarrassed to say yes? I did. And then I picked up the next, and the next. I skipped a few, and ended up reading about 8 of them before I got bored with the same tropes. But if you want a smut, trash read that’s a guilty pleasure escape, you’ll love these. 𝐌𝐘 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝟑/𝟓⭐️