Unlocked

Reviewed by Aimee

Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Authors: Jaimey Grant , Wendy Swore, Rita Webb, Paige Ray, Jeanne Voelker, K. G. Borland, Gwendolyn McIntyre, Katrina Monroe, S. M. Carrière

*free, downloadable e-book available on Goodreads

Ratings Explanation

Language: There are some “hells and damns” littered throughout the book in various stories.  References to cursing are made.  She “cursed savagely, another vulgarity passed his lips”.  One exclamation of deity, “Holy crap”, “I’d be screwed, fool”.

Violence: Sable is an assassin and kills people.  Sometimes she kills just because she wants to, but only people “whose crimes went unpunished.”  Etinne makes her crime scenes look like a robbery, suicide or an accident.  Etinne is ordered to kill Sable.  Faolyne is death.  She kills people to keep balance.  A razor sharp star is thrown into the torso of a woman.  “The copper tang of blood swirled in her mouth and spilled past her lips.”  Someone is attacked and there is some fighting.  Characters thrown into trees multiple times, and choking.  Character morphs into a mountain lion and there are sounds of bones cracking and skin tearing.  Grandma, looking old, dried out and brown, wearing a tattered white dress with her eye sockets empty, chases a girl.

Sexual Content: There is inferred sex.  Her “lips were swollen with his passionate kisses.”  “She rose, heedless of her nakedness.”   There is a reference to seduction and “rollin’ in the hay”.  Kate is said to “sleep around”.  There are some kisses.

Adult Themes: Revenge, rape, ethnic jokes, stealing and revolutionaries are all mentioned briefly.

Synopsis

Unlocked is a book made up of 10 different short stories by 9 different authors.  All stories make mention of a key somewhere in the storyline.

It is much harder to review a collection of short stories that make up one book, especially when the stories are not written equally.  The ratings reflect the overall content, although not all the stories contain content that may be questionable for some readers.  For example, “The Assassin’s Keeper” contains most of the violence and sexual content that boosted the ratings higher. “Survival” and “Shoshana” coming in next.  The most innocent of the stories are “Crop Circles” and “Unlocking William”.  My personal favorites were “Symbiote”, “Shoshana” and “The Key to a Good Education”, mostly because I felt a need to know the rest of the story.  My favorite quote comes from the story, “The Key to a Good Education”.  “The key to understanding is to observe not simply actions but also inactions: to listen carefully not only to what is spoken, but also what is not.”  Overall, I would have to keep this book in the high school range.