YMMV / Överenskommelser

• Complete Monster: Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld is a sadist who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he drove to suicide, Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.
• Moment of Awesome: Beatrice competes with men in ice-skating and horse-riding, assists in a surgery and speaks against her oppressors.
  • Seth saves Beatrice twice from said oppressors. And when she fell off a horse and lost consciousness, Seth went looking for her, during a thunderstorm!
• Moral Event Horizon: All three villains have crossed it by the end:
  • Rosenschiöld crosses it when he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice on her wedding night.
  • It's hard to tell when Wilhelm and Edvard crossed it because they have so many potential moments: beating Beatrice nearly to death, locking her in a room for a week with no food, impregnating a minor, abandoning her, and showing no remorse when she dies after an abortion, and forcing Beatrice into marriage with Rosenschiöld, despite knowing she would suffer. They definately crossed it though when they showed Beatrice no sympathy after she was raped and nearly killed on her wedding night.
• Spoiled by the Format: Beatrice and Seth have what can only be described as a really hot date. Surely they will sort things out now, after eight months of misunderstandings? Surely now Beatrice won't have to marry Rosenschiöld? But wait! Don't we still have almost half the book left to go? Oh damn...
• The Woobie: Beatrice is smart, competent and tough, but life has been really hard on her. Not only did she lose her mother when she was only six years old and her father when she was only fourteen years old. But she also has to live with her tyrannical uncle, who abuses her for five long years, forcing her into a marriage with Rosenschiöld. Beatrice's relationship with Seth is also complicated to say the least. Just when she thought that things would turn out good between them, cue her sadistic cousin ruining everything! And that is only the first half of the book...