Review: Disappointed
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2012
After reading the other reviews I purchased this title and was disappointed.  This isn't a different story and the characters were poorly developed.  The slaves at Cascade (and in this society), don't "choose" to be slaves in the sense that they have options.  Generally, in this society if you don't have a job or training you become a slave.  Alex, is an anomaly in that he one of the few who chooses slavery because of his specific sexual needs and he is older-47 years old.  He has a trade, makes a living but his submissive nature calls him to slavery.  His situation is very different than most of the other slaves we meet:  Noah, Jackson, and Gavin.  Gavin's experience as a slave led him to refuse to even consider owning a slave until Alex comes along.  And this is a huge problem in the continuity of the character development of Gavin.  Alex is the first slave he's trained who is actually choosing to become a slave when he has more attractive alternatives (from Gavin's point of view).  As a result, he's overprotective, holds back and goes "easy" on Alex while trying to convince him that slavery is the wrong choice for him.  None of this makes sense-why does Gavin choose to help out the one person who is looking forward to becoming a slave and would happily go with any of the men who take him for a test drive-the rougher the better.  One would think that he would have chosen, before this point,  to help out someone in dire straits-terrified, young, no options, but not Gavin he waits until someone comes to him who has options, is old enough to make a decision and indeed has thought about it and is only offering a 6 month contract so if this gig doesn't work out he can go back to his trade.  Very different than many of the other slaves we meet who have years of slavery to look forward to-again it would make more sense to help one of those people out.I did enjoy the relationship between Sam and Gavin, it was friendly and loving but given that they both had dominant natures I found it very odd, and hard to believe, that they didn't have a third in their relationship, someone very submissive to offset their dominance.  Sure, for the most part Sam let Gavin dominate him, but he wasn't really satisfied with that-as we see in the scene with Jackson when Demetri says "how have you lived without this"?  I think, as readers, we're supposed to understand that this has been missing from Sam and Gavin's relationship and Alex's presence in their home would provide this. But again, that person did not have to be a slave. Alex would have been happy to go to Michael, Demetri even Brian and Rhys.  He wasn't looking for love, he wanted to be hurt and any of those men would have been happy to provide that.  I thought it was hilarious when they called Alex "boy" he was 47 years old for crying out loud!So the big conflict-Gavin not wanting to own a slave because he hated his time in slavery made no sense because Alex wanted to be a slave and Gavin worked as a fricking slave trainer, he had no problem, no conflict with his job.  And he was acting like an owner because he was totally ignoring Alex's desires.  Sam's arguments in favor of Alex making his own choices were good ones, but he was a fricking slave owner.  He only stopped owning slaves when he hooked up with Gavin-he had no problem using slaves whether or not they choose to be in the situation or not.  I felt like the author was trying to write Sam and Gavin as empathic and fair and totally missed the mark-they were poorly fleshed out and delusional.However, Alex was consistent and well developed.  The character of Demetri was fascinating.