I had been avoiding Rampant for a while. Five years, in fact. And I should have avoided it for a bit longer.
A couple of friends and I read Rampant for our first book club pick, and it was entirely underwhelming. I was expecting a thrilling book about unicorn hunters, full of kickass heroines and action. Obviously, I was wrong. There were a lot of female characters, yes, but none of them particularly stood out. Astrid, the main character, was okay, and I really liked her cousin, Phil, but other than that, none were very important or memorable.
And the unicorns were weird. So weird. One of them in particular talked to Astrid in her head and it was just odd. Bonegrinder was adorable and cute, though.
I didn't like the unicorn/virginity lore much either, mostly because I'm not too sure if Peterfreund was trying to send some sort of message or if it was simply a matter of unicorns = purity = virginity. That doesn't sound too great either to be honest.
And, finally, the matter of rape wasn't handled so well. One of the characters is raped and it was talked about to begin with, in a somewhat realistic way, and then later on it's brushed aside.