Review: Cheap, but not so good
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2012
To begin with, let's say that this book is cheap: 2.90$ for 290 pages. And the author knows her English spelling and grammar (no mistake found).I think a lot of people who are not sure they like the idea of ​​slavery, even consensual, will love this book. But I did not like it.There are several inconsistencies early in the story, so I was not really hooked.* Gavin, the main character, is against slavery, but he works as a trainer of slaves for Cascade, a company that trains and sells slaves.* It is said in the story that Alex (the second protagonist) is the first applicant slave that Gavin trains who really wants to become a slave. His previous slaves in training were young paupers who had not found other ways to get out of their misery than offering themselves as slaves to Cascade. However, Gavin, who is by his own admission, against slavery, trained them all without moral issues. But when he meets Alex, he decides that he is the one he must rescue from slavery and protect him against the kinky owners who want to buy him.* Gavin, who is revolted at the idea of ​​slave owners who do not take into consideration the needs or desirse of the slaves, takes no account of the firm and deliberate decision of Alex to become a slave. He seeks for 250 pages to discourage Alex from becoming a slave and he refrains from treating Alex as hard as he did previously with the other young slaves that he trained. Which, incidentally, makes the story very dull since the desire of Gavin to go easy with Alex prevents the story from developing interesting BDSM elements.* Gavin treats Alex as if he were a child unable of making his own decisions, but Alex is 47 years old.* When Gavin asks Alex at the beginning of the story how he feels about pain, Alex, who nevertheless met many times sadistic potential buyers before going to register with Cascade, said to be terrified of the pain and not know what he feels about it. And as soon as the first time Gavin strikes him, Alex is supremely excited by what Gavin does to him. How could a forty-seven-year-old guy not realize until then that the pain excited him? Mystery!* Alex--who already knows very well Brian (slave owner) and Rhys (the slave of Brian) to have experienced BDSM scenes with them many times--feels compelled to give his name to Cascade to be able to live that same sort of BDSM things that Brian and Rhys offered him. Why is he not remained free and did he not continued his BDSM relationship with Brian and Rhys if it was sufficiently satisfactory that he wants Brian to buy him? Cascade was absolutely not necessary.Anyway, the story drags on. There is only one real BDSM scene in the 240 pages of the book (because of Gavin desire to "protect" Alex and to go gently with him). The main part of the book is a little rough sex scenes. There are too many sex scenes for my taste. So if you are looking for BDSM, just read the last 50 pages, where Gavin finally smartened a bit and decided to show his true nature.Even if the author knows the English grammar pretty well, it does not mean that she is a great author. There is no description of sensations in this novel: no smell, no tactile sensations, no taste. There are very few descriptions of feelings (emotion). We know that Gavin is in love with Alex only because the author shows how possessive he is and that he is nervous at public meetings between Alex and potential buyers.It made me think to a novel that Sade wrote while he was in jail. Nothing in his novel described the sensations either, as Sade could not live what he imagined since he was in jail at that time. Here, the author--a lot less sadistic than Sade (by the way, Sade was a masochist too, his servant dominated him from time to time)--probably did not live much of what she describes as she is unable to attach all the feelings that go with it.In summary, I forced myself to finish this book. But I skipped many pages describing sex scenes and I only browsed several other pages in which the author was only describing the guilty conscience of Gavin and his issues with the idea of ​​owning a slave (he thinks to buy Alex ). Up to the 7/8 of the book, Gavin still asks Alex if he really wants to become a slave! He had asked him that same question a million times already and the answer was always an enthusiastic "YES!". So, I had enough of this mental torture and I read several pages diagonally. I was glad when I eventually got to the last page.I give two stars because of the quality of the writing (no mistake found) and because there is a few good pages (the last 50 pages), but this is the maximum that I can give to this novel.