Warnings in frontmatter: graphic torture, forced incest, rape
This is allegedly the apex of everything "dark romance/erotica". So horrib1.5* rounded up
Warnings in frontmatter: graphic torture, forced incest, rape
This is allegedly the apex of everything "dark romance/erotica". So horrible, that the daring reader will piss and puke from shock while reading the first chapter.
Welp.
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(view spoiler)[Let me get this immediately out of the way. Anyone who watched Dexter or the Hannibal movies without problems, will find this book mildly amusing. Not titillating. Amusing. It's silly, and the entire torture stuff is so over the top and so clinically described, that there was zero eroticised pain or torture in it.
In consequence I didn't consider it dark. Not even dark grey. Of course, it then also didn't scratch the itch I read dark erotica for. Like the vast, vast majority of so-called "dark erotica", which commonly are just very inept splatter fests (at best) or inept physiology (at worst). Truly dark erotic stories I still can count off my own two hands. That's how rare they are.
Back to the book. It was a fast read, and the gimmick was genuinely amusing, even though it sort of was obvious 2 chapters in. It also was typically North American in background (European tales of the devil tend to be far darker), kind of a reverse dark Cinderfella story. I rounded up because I actually finished this (as opposed to the majority of dark erotica/romance I don't finish, because they bore me).
A dark erotic story this is not, though. (hide spoiler)]
And as an added warning: of course this also is no BDSM....more
My second attempt at reading an Addison Cain novel...
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Oookay, this was just as bad as the first one I tried. Horrid, stream of consciousness-sty
My second attempt at reading an Addison Cain novel...
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Oookay, this was just as bad as the first one I tried. Horrid, stream of consciousness-style prose without descriptions, settings, any sort of world-building, nothing. Just a haphazard recounting of action sequences with "explained" behaviour. Nothing is shown, no emotions anywhere, no lust, pain, fear, nothing. About as interesting as listening to the weather report of two weeks ago. Well, not even that, as that would be more structured.
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Yep. THAT is how erotic this BS was. I have to say, that I'm kinky enough to love knotting. But fuck me sideways, it would really be helpful, Ms Cain, if you knew a few facts about knotting in animals in the first place. Seriously.
I read until 24% and skimmed to roughly 70% when I gave up after being bored to distraction. The horrible meh prose never changed, by now I think I have to acknowledge that this is Ms Cain's writing style. What I do not understand are all these readers swooning over how "filthy" and "dark" this is. It didn't even tickle me, and I don't think I'm the harshest of all sadists out there.
I think I'll give it a while before I try strike #3. If ever....more
I'm rereading this, after buying the Kindle-versions, and must say, after so many recent book fails, I had to raise this to 5*!
This is pretty much on I'm rereading this, after buying the Kindle-versions, and must say, after so many recent book fails, I had to raise this to 5*!
This is pretty much on the dot what a sadist wishing to read rapefic wants to read. The companion writer to Ashley Zacharias' masochistic orgies. No holds barred, sadistic rape and lust, a training of Eileen which for once completely lacks the froufrou, fifi and fluff you get in all those allegedly "dark romances". The woman is put through the wringer sexually. Period.
This is unmitigated shice wank-off material for the needy BDSMer. Or people who think they are BDSMers. I'm afraid the newsflash here is, tha [image]
This is unmitigated shice wank-off material for the needy BDSMer. Or people who think they are BDSMers. I'm afraid the newsflash here is, that this is not how BDSM takes place, it's abuse instead, and no, this isn't either how poly takes place, it's instead a form of rape by proxy. Indeed, it is a sort of de-fanged rape-fiction, which fails to deliver the full quid.
Mind, I'm not against rape-fiction, nor against tortureporn, I love to wank off as much as the next woman. What I cannot abide is rape-fiction being sold to an unsuspecting public as BDSM.
What I also hate is that this kind of book has killed erudite BDSM stories for good in the past decade or so. Which means I lack reading matter. And that's not something I forgive easily.
And gosh am I tired of these silly tropes here... ...more
This book is what happens, when an author is not just a bit in love with herself, but thoroughly self-indulgent instead. Convoluted, repetitive [image]
This book is what happens, when an author is not just a bit in love with herself, but thoroughly self-indulgent instead. Convoluted, repetitive and horribly cluttered prose, a grimdark setting which turns G.R.R. Martin into a writer of candy-floss fluff. A book which wallows in the alleged grime and horror of 19th century London. I mean, even Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy write rip-roaring humour compared to this.
I need brain bleach now.
It took me less than five pages and I was terminally depressed. I needed a hearty shot of brandy to get out of that mood, while watching Doris Day...
Seriously, this is the sort of writing that I know a couple of my friends adore, but which I consider pointless and pretentious, disrespectful of the actual history, and - well, no way around this - utterly self-indulgent on the author's side. It's an emotional wankfest of angst and h/h.
**spoiler alert** 1.5* rounded down. Half a star just because there is at least a bit of a plot in this now.
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There was no change to the better. **spoiler alert** 1.5* rounded down. Half a star just because there is at least a bit of a plot in this now.
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There was no change to the better. I have the same problems with this, as I had with the first two episodes. Three attempts is all I give, and I guess everyone will be relieved, if I now announce that I'll drop this series.
It's mainly the OTTness which killed it for me, and the fact that nothing really works like this fictive situation supposedly works.
Stockholm Syndrome takes longer and follows different steps. Directed operant conditioning also takes much, much longer (the US army needs 6 weeks for it, I believe, and a lot of people fall out of their programs for being insensitive to them). BDSM submission doesn't work like this, and simple massive torture also doesn't have such an effect (as was proven at various times in history, e.g. slavery in the USA).
The torture per se was again so blown out of any proportion, that I - as someone who can roughly estimate actual reaction to it - once again mentally switched off, when I deemed the prisoner would have been out of it in a real life situation. The applied methods would cause severe health problems in reality, e.g. confinement in one position without the ability to move kills people already on airplanes, where it's just a few hours, not a day or days. Sepsis is a lightning fast killer in real life, and can cause the demise of a strapping adult man within 24 hours. Gangrene means the loss of the limb it develops in. All of which would be extremely likely end results of the tortures and confinements described here.
So, why describe surreal tortures? I mean, it's interesting only if you know it could be real and how it would play out in reality. Surreal torture is completely zany. Why would I wish to read rambling lists of them, if the knowledgable me is aware that this person would have been dead or damaged beyond repair already? Overkill, and truly, sometimes less is really much, much more. One single such torture moment, described with empathy and emotion, would have achieved so much more.
I have the distinct suspicion that quite a few of the readers have no idea of the physical and mental consequences of some of what gets described in this series. They hence believe it would actually play out as it does and are oblivious to how grossly overdone it is.
Just to qualify and quantify: I've had a healthy and very fit sub go into a full near-death experience within 40 minutes of a stress suspension.
So, all which tells you people miraculously take a turn towards being lovey-dovey kittens after being whacked and tortured for hours, having their flesh stapled and their arse reamed out, is the author's say-so.
I'm afraid that not.
In short, I am asked too many suspensions of disbelief here to make the cut. Maybe the worst for me was the dry, unemotional narrative.
I'm happy for everyone who likes it, but it's not my thing....more
**spoiler alert** I'm not impressed with this. For one thing this was dry and not very erotic, actually not erotic at all. I couldn't build up any emp**spoiler alert** I'm not impressed with this. For one thing this was dry and not very erotic, actually not erotic at all. I couldn't build up any empathy for any character, they all were either skeevy, or wimpy and childlike.
Neal came across less like an adult, hardened criminal with a justified life sentence, and more like a whiny teenager who committed a couple of wrong choices and should have been in a young offender institution. Certainly not in such a torture centre.
Insofar things still just don't match. The drivel of Martin and the other senior wardens is and stays just drivel: neither actual BDSM works that way, nor is there any valid form of submission which works like that (they are all heading straight towards major cases of PTSD/Stockholm Syndrome instead), and that this sort of negative conditioning doesn't work, countless gulags and prisons have already proven beyond doubt. I find it immature and illogical and refer to FB Peaches and Francis Manna for a better psychological background and setup.
Also, serious overkill. The initial scene while being checked in would have made putty out of every normal person, especially given the constant frightening. Everything aftwards was overkill.
And last, but not least, not one of the tortures was sexy or interesting to me, which is saying a bit, given that I am a full-blown sadist. Not the enemas, not the stapling, not the electro shocks. I may have "switched off" at the point - quite near the beginning - where I deemed that the victim would have already been zoned out beyond repair. A gibbering semi-corpse isn't my idea of erotic, sorry. ...more
Nope, the Marquis still has it on this sorry sordid little and oh-so strained tale. There I thought I might stretch my horizon a bit. Alas, it wasn't Nope, the Marquis still has it on this sorry sordid little and oh-so strained tale. There I thought I might stretch my horizon a bit. Alas, it wasn't to be. Just tired twists which are so old that Hitchcock would have laughed and an author glorifying drugs and doing his best to offend. Which - closely looked at - was just childish and repetitive like a game of dare amongst brattish little boys.
I can only rate how much I enjoyed it, and I didn't. Neither as a satire, nor as erotica, nor as a literary smoke grenade. I feel sorry for everyone who paid money for this, but - fuck - there's sure a lot of words in these books.
What I however can't forgive the author is that, even though allegedly being in the lifestyle, she writes something which paints BDSM as even worse than the non-con and negativity in "Fifty Shades of Grey". She paints it being abuse, and this despite protests to the opposite. Considering that she states "Fifty Shades of Grey" is a story of consensual BDSM I'm not even that astonished....more
I can only rate how much I enjoyed it, and I didn't. Neither as a satire, nor as erotica, nor as a literary smoke grenade. I feel sorry for everyone who paid money for this, but - fuck - there's sure a lot of words in these books.
What I however can't forgive the author is that, even though allegedly being in the lifestyle, she writes something which paints BDSM as even worse than the non-con and negativity in "Fifty Shades of Grey". She paints it being abuse, and this despite protests to the opposite. Considering that she states "Fifty Shades of Grey" is a story of consensual BDSM I'm not even that astonished....more
Quite possibly this series was intended to be an intellectual and elaborate spoof of Fifty Shades of Grey. I wouldn't put it past the author, who undoQuite possibly this series was intended to be an intellectual and elaborate spoof of Fifty Shades of Grey. I wouldn't put it past the author, who undoubtedly is of the college-educated kind, to have aimed for that goal. Alas, even if that was the intent, there is always the huge difference between trying and doing. In this case the attempt fell right into the chasm between the two: which is on the nose, full facial.
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These three books are almost beat for beat a retelling of the FSoG series, except for it being written as if a postmodernistic literature prof had a baby with the Harvard phone book, raised by Foucault on a mix of Thorazine and milk toast. I seriously commend everyone who managed to read this bore without skimming or falling asleep.
Again, possibly that was the intent of this series. I can only rate how much I enjoyed it, and I didn't. Neither as a satire, nor as erotica, nor as a literary smoke grenade. I feel sorry for everyone who paid money for this, but - fuck - there's sure a lot of words in these books.
I might - very cautiously - mention that neither the Semperoper, nor Schloss Pillnitz, the Frauenkirche, the Residenzschloss, the Zwinger, nor finally the reconstructed or repaired baroque and rococo city centre are anything to be sneezed at:
[image] author: Geolina163 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
And beautiful, Bohemian Prague is also not a cesspool of abduction and sex trafficking. I've visited both cities, and the treatment they were given in these books is... highly curious. But this I might forgive an author, who either never travelled there, or has picked places as per old prejudices.
What I however can't forgive is that, even though allegedly being in the lifestyle, she writes something which paints BDSM as even worse than the non-con and negativity in "Fifty Shades of Grey". She paints it being abuse, and this despite protests to the opposite. Considering that she states "Fifty Shades of Grey" is a story of consensual BDSM I'm not even that astonished....more
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