JoJo’s just turned eighteen. He meets a group of rock climbers at the beach and has a fall. Before he knows it, he’s back at this guy Laurie’s place, but not only is Laurie gay, he’s the owner of a bondage dungeon.
JoJo, a straight, Christian boy from the South, is bewildered.
Within minutes he’s agreed to something, somehow, and he’s swinging from chains, bound and gagged. But the fun doesn’t really start until Laurie turns his muscle on the junk between JoJo’s legs.
18+ Strictly adults only. Contains graphic descriptions of sadomasochistic sexual fetishes including bondage, spanking and ball busting.
My cohesive thought processing necessary for assembling a review ceased to exist at the acute onset of vivid imagery of perspiring masculine man muscles, encased in straps, ropes, clips, and sweat.. ["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
Why do people insist on calling non-con and dub-con BDSM?
The qualifier for BDSM is SSC/RACK, meaning at the very least you need full and valid consent. "Implied" consent or "didn't protest when I did it" are not consent, they actually represent a slippery slope towards rape. So don't try to sell it as BDSM to me or unsuspecting laypeople. Call it what it is.
Else--I definitely liked Todd Young better when he was staying away from the current BDSM craze. The BDSM-fail here completely trumped any enjoyment I might have had else.
Aw, gawd. Soo, you read the blurb right? Jojo's just turned 18 and very inexperienced with anything sexual, because:
"It was his Christian upbringing, he knew. Too many times he’d been told not to touch himself. And to keep his virginity intact." (don't even get me started on my opinions on that quote...)
As usual(?) it's a bit weird, this writing... (I've read Naked before this alright).
What made me stop and DNF at 66% was this:
(I put the quote in a spoiler, but it's already mentioned in the blurb that "Within minutes he’s agreed to something, somehow, and he’s swinging from chains, bound and gagged." So the quote is from when this happens, so it's not really a spoiler-spoiler, IYKWIM...)
"Want" another?
NO! *gag*
There is so much wrong with this, and it really made me uncomfortable. I like my BDSM to be "safe, sane and consensual". This was way off base.
Oh Dear. I had such hopes for this, but the writing was stilted and jerky, the characters two-dimensional and ... Contains graphic descriptions of sadomasochistic sexual fetishes including bondage, spanking and ball busting ??? Sorry. I found it dull, bland and more off-putting than anything else.
Usually when I DNF a book, I close it and don't look back. Usually I don't brood about it anymore. Usually... but not this time!
So what did I do, when I had some time to kill? I took a deep breath and finished this shorty.
Maybe I needed the step back. (Or maybe I'm just a book-masochist. But that I'll deny until my very last breath!)
Something about Luke King's / Todd Young's kind of writing caught me and I can't pinpoint what it was. (Maybe just my fazination about its weirdness? Who knows? Not me!)
And suddenly everything clicked in place for me!
Don't get me wrong! JoJo still is dumb, naive and I still don't like him. And Laurie... he keeps on giving me the creeps.
But now I came to think Luke King / Todd Young is either completely nuts or a fucking genius!
I don't know, if I'll read anything else by him. For now, his books stay in my don-t-think-i-could-stand-it shelf!
But I'll raise my rating up to 3.5 stars (rounded up)!
For a first part in a new series this was great, but I'd rather read the whole story at once, I think. Because only Todd Young can give you the Todd Young feeling, and therefore you must read till the end.
We have a typical Todd Young protagonist, JoJo. He just turned 18, obviously has issues, has a thing for exhibitionism, and has hot, weird sex with a all-time smiling, good looking stranger. To get a better insight, we need to know and read more, and I'm sure, judging by Todd's other books, it will be interesting.
I love Todd's writing style. It's compelling, detailed, out of this world, hot, fascinating, captivating, and nuts :-) I'm sure I could find more suitable words...
But, there were quite a lot of words at the wrong place in the sentence. I would offer to proof-read, Todd. Although, since I am no native speaker, you better find someone else more suitable to get this cleaned up.
What we learn in this story, as a life lesson I mean, is that, if you put oil, rock climbing and a too tight speedo together, Sounds nuts to you? Well it is, but as always there is a lot more to this book...
Todd writes gay fiction, not romance. So if you're looking for some lovey-dovey tale with a traditional love relationship between two amazing and adorable MCs, this is not it. But if you're in the mood to get sucked into something special and intriguing, you just found it.