Review: Folsom by Tarryn Fisher & Willow Aster

The nation as we know it is a thing of the past. With the male species on the verge of extinction, a society called the End Men is formed to save the world. Folsom Donahue is one of twelve men whose sole purpose is to repopulate the Regions. The endless days spent having sex with strangers leaves Folsom with an emptiness no amount of women, money, or status can fill.

Until Gwen.

Gwen has wanted a child for as long as she can remember, but when she finally gets a chance to have her own, she uncovers a long-hidden truth. The injustice she sees moves her to help save the men whom no one else believes need saving.

A forbidden love, grown in a time of despair, ignites a revolution. Folsom and Gwen, torn between their love for each other and their sense of duty, must make a choice. But some will stop at nothing to destroy them.

Folsom is book one of the End of Men series.

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MY REVIEW

★★★★☆

Have you ever dipped into a story that you knew you shouldn't like... actually you knew you didn't really like it... but you just can't stop reading it? It not only shocked you but had you grinning and wondering at the thrill of it all? Yeah, that's what reading this story was like.

Embrace. The. Cringe.

I was disgusted and intrigued at the same damn time and I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't read fast enough, I couldn't fall for Folsom hard enough, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the continuation of this story. That's probably why it was with equal parts relief and dismay that I one-clicked book two before I even finished this one.

I KNOW!! I just can't help myself!!

So think dystopian romance slash taboo/forbidden romance slash what the heck is going on romance. Folsom was tasked, along with 11 other men, to repopulate the world. He had already impregnated over 200 women and plans were made to do so much more. He was resigned to his fate and felt that he was just doing his duty to his country. All of that changes once he meets Gwen. Not only did she challenge his way of life, she forced him to take a good hard look at what he had become. He wasn't a free man while being an End Man... he was a sex slave and his future was not his own. He doesn't start to care until she sparks his heart, making him into a changed man, a man in love and who dreams of a future with his woman.

No matter the cost.

It wasn’t until Gwen that the constraints I’ve lived with for so many years started to chaff.

Unfortunately, Gwen falls for a man who can never be hers. He belongs to all women. When she finds herself pregnant with a boy, a son that is looked upon as a prize/commodity more than a person, she finds herself at odds with the only life she's ever known. When she sees the true nature of the lives of the End Men, when she realizes that Folsom will never be free to be with her no matter how much they wish it so, she leaves behind all of her past convictions and finds a new path. A path to a revolution.

But when what is right for the whole world becomes wrong for an individual, what is to be done?

I loved Folsom and Gwen so much. I want them to be together. I want them to win. I want everyone who was ever against them, who ever meant them harm, who ever hurt them, to die horrible and excruciating deaths. I wanted them to ride off into the sunset together. I'm hoping that their hope and love doesn't die and that some how, some way, they find their forever.

There is intimacy in quiet, in being with another person and not needing to say anything.

While this story did cause me some discomfort (really, who wants to read about their hero sleeping with EVERYONE???), I still found it to be an amazing read. It was skeevy while being sweet, cringe-worthy while being entertaining, disturbing while being unputdownable. I know using negative terms half the time to describe this story isn't helping matters, but it was really worth the read. If you're looking for something that will take you out of your comfort zone, that will make you question everything and contemplate a future so different from what we all casually envision, a story that will make you think and will have you rooting for the characters so hard you could scream, that will have you hating everyone but Folsom and Gwen, then read this book. It's so worth it!