Kim Corum

There are people who work in the anti-violence movement who have created the Power and Control Wheel to describe common areas of abuse. There are eight spokes in this wheel, and the relationship described in this book embodies seven of them. It's as though the author looked at the wheel and made certain to include all areas of abuse: emotional, intimidation, coercion, isolation, economic coercion, blaming the victim, and male privilege. Luckily, there are no children in this unhealthy relationship, or I am sure that eighth spoke of the wheel would also be included in this story.

And all that would be great, if this was a book about domestic or intimate partner violence. But it's not.

Completely unrealistic portrayal of stripping? Check.
Unsafe behavior? Check.
Unhealthy behavior? Check, check, and checkmate. "It didn't stop me from hating myself for an instant, then reverting back to hating him" (page 44) and then she has sex with him. "He was beating me down, taking control of my body, my mind and my soul. Then he'd rebuild it. Brick by brick, using his words of love to re-master me until I stood new in his eyes, in the image he had created for me, of me" (pp.5-6). He demands she quit her job, isolates her from her friends, controls the money, beats her, and scares her so much she vomits. Oh, did I mention this is suppose to be erotica?

Argh, but this is an awful story. THIS is why vanilla people think BDSM/kink people are sick. For example, the main character is a woman who becomes a stripper "for the money"; she is picked up by a wealthy man who trolls strip joints to find a woman he could remake into someone he can physically, emotionally, and mentally abuse - it's ALL unhealthy!

You can't even say the awful plot has a veneer of good writing. Unless you think crap like this is well written: "And I knew, I knew, I wasn't just a conquest f*&% for him. There was something else there" (page 47). Really? How? Why? Cause this gem of knowledge is thought by the main character after they have their first dinner where NO conversation takes place, the woman tries to leave, they both become physically abusive to one another, and then they have sex. Having an omniscient narrator only sometimes (as this book does) is annoying and allows the author to "explain" events, thoughts, or actions to make up for the lack of plot and depthful characters. The author also avoids any proximity with creativity. For example, one of the main character's is not given a last name, or info on what he does for a living, or where he goes during the day. The main character claims she never knows any of this info, despite living with him. Really? She can't even look at the mail to find out his last name?

This book has numerous typos and egregious misspellings - among others, "claves" for calves, "eying" (several times) for eyeing, and the requisite misuse of "to" for too.

Yes, this is fiction (crappy fiction, but still, fiction). But it seems that every BDSM novel portrays the lifestyle like this - completely unhealthy. Would it be too much to ask to have healthy BDSM stories?… (altro)