Review: More realistic than many BDSM stories being churned out these days
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 14, 2013
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 9/10PROS:- The characters, both primary and secondary, are interesting and well fleshed out. Lane is kind-hearted and nave, as well as painfully shy and very down on his luck. Derek manages to be sexy and dominant despite the fact that he's (gasp!) just a regular guy who struggles with stress and money issues and isn't some perfect-looking, fabulously wealthy man. And all of their friends and co-workers are complex and intriguing--even the unlikeable ones.- I responded really positively to the depictions of BDSM in this book. The secondary character of Brin is one of the best depictions I've ever seen of a bratty submissive: he's irritating (as brats truly are) but not childlike. And there's also a priceless depiction of BDSM puppy play that I think even most vanilla readers would find sweet rather than weird, as is often the stigma associated with that sort of play.- Derek is not only out to his family about being into BDSM; he's also incredibly open with them about it. They joke with him repeatedly about spanking men, tying them up, gagging them, etc. It made me smile.- Some of the dialogue is quite funny. Many of the funniest lines are from a macaw who repeats phrases he learned from his previous owner, an infirm elderly man. The authors use the bird's limited phrase book to good comic effect.CONS:- The book contains some descriptions of Lane's abuse in a fair amount of detail, and I found them difficult to read.- There are dates included at the beginnings of some of the chapters ("June 18th to 23rd"), and I didn't think they were necessary. The story does a fine job of moving time along without them, and epigraphs nearly always draw my attention away from the story itself.Overall comments: This is a very good look at the warring desires within a submissive consciousness, and there are many comments throughout the story that gave me the impression that the authors must have at least some firsthand knowledge of the BDSM lifestyle. There's not much sex in the story--only a few scenes, and not particularly graphic--but I didn't miss the sex at all in this one. I was far more interested in the emotional connection than the physical one, and Lane is so fragile at the start of the book that sex would have seemed out of place to me anyway.