Review: Easy read for BDSM virgins
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2014
Crescent’s novel Teaching Maya is a romance novel with BDSM aspects. Maya is a young woman that has been unable to have satisfying sexual relations. She decides to seduce the oh so hot Ryan Clayborn during a two-week family vacation. Ryan makes it clear that he isn’t into relationships. Maya accepts these terms but will she be able to live with this decision?Teaching Maya is a quick, easy read that, like the title promises, centers upon the sexual awakening of Maya. Unlike the vast majority of BDSM novels, Teaching Maya was not centered on the BDSM relationship and how it works. As an outspoken women, I find it difficult to read about submissive women. That was definitely not a problem with this novel. The BDSM relationship is limited to the sexual aspect of Maya and Ryan’s relationship. I found this refreshing. The background descriptions are very limited – as if the writer was in a hurry to get to the ‘good’ parts. I was obsessed with learning what the family business was as Crescent never tells the reader. The imageries, however, improved as the novel went along.I found certain aspects of the story unbelievable. Two examples are that Maya, as a trust fund child, doesn’t go to college before starting at the family business and attends the ‘best’  business school in Paris (and then for only 2 years). These are only small details but often getting these details right makes the story more believable for the reader. It didn’t seem as if Crescent has ever been to Paris. The French, especially the Parisians in the past decade, definitely understand English even if they refuse to speak it to us lowly tourists. Crescent’s continuous use of putting character’s thoughts into quotations – as if the words were spoken instead of thought – was frustrating. Often, I had to re-read passages to check whether a phrase was spoken or merely thought.I recommend this book to BDSM virgins.