Review:

Buddyread with my bae Inge!

Is this really what I want, or am I forcing myself into a box to get the guy of my dreams?

That quote is so accurate it hurts. It's true though -- how many of you have sometimes felt the need to alter the person you are, to suit the person you like/love? I know I have, at times, changed certain aspects (not dramatically) to please the person I liked/loved at the time. Maybe he didn't like my hair a certain way, so I'd wear it up/down, or maybe he preferred it when I wore a dress when went out, so I'd discard those comfy pair of jeans for the evening.

But never -- never-- will I put myself in the position of doing something I do not want, or forcing myself to like something I do not enjoy for the love of my life. The guy could very well be my One True Love, but if he wants to push my boundaries to a point I don't feel comfortable with, I won't let him.

It's simple, people.

Say no.

And here's the biggest problem I had with this book: either Kelly doesn't say no, or Tristan doesn't respect her wishes. Don't feed me the "she should use her safeword" bullshit, because I'll tell you where to stick it. If someone says no, it's NO. There's no way around it, there's no excuse, to just continue to do what you're doing when she is obviously not having a good time.

There is a fine line between sex and abuse. A very fine line, and people seem to forget it at times. I can't count the amount of times I was disgusted, repulsed, angry, murderous when it came to Tristan. I honestly do not see how Kelly can consider this guy as "sweet" or "caring" or how she can see him as the love of her life.

Girl, you can do so much better than that douchebag.

I mean it. Tristan is, to put it nicely, a fucking asshole lunatic. That was a deal-breaker.

Summary:

Kelly Hauser is a 25 year old virgin, desperately in love with her best friend of fourteen years, Tristan. When she finally comes clean about her feelings for him, she's surprised when he doesn't go running for the hills and, instead, lets her into a part of his life she had never imagined.

So here's problem number one. Why, oh why, do the girls in erotica always have to be virgins, and awkward about it? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind it, I just find it annoying how, very rarely, you'll get someone experienced, someone who knows what they're doing. Problem number two stems from Tristan and Kelly's friendship.

They've been best friends for fourteen years. Instead of easing his virgin friend into the world of BDSM, Tristan shows her rough, ugly porn. Not the soft kind that might excite her, but a video called "Dungeon Masters" where the Dom is clearly torturing his sub. It's so, so nasty -- not something you show your friend/girlfriend/sub/whatever. I have to admit, when it came to explaining BDSM, Christian Grey did a much better job. At least he didn't scare the shit out of her by showing her some horror porn. I would've jumped on the first train to Fuckthatville, if my boyfriend/Dom had shown me that. It was far too intense for Kelly.

Maybe that should have been taken as a warning.

There are other things that don't sit right with me about the friendship. When you've known someone for half your life, you know them: you know their likes and dislikes, their pet peeves, their favourite foods, music, movies, their type of woman/man.

But it seems to me that Kelly has literally no clue who Tristan is or what he likes.

I get the impression that he doesn't care for the taste of fish all that much. I wish he'd told me he didn't like fish.

Isn't that something you'd know?

And of course, from there, the list of problems just gets bigger.

The characters

I didn't like them, at all. Kelly -- I warmed to her a little, by the end. Tristan? Fuck no.

So I'm going to talk vent about Tristan.

Tristan is an asshole. He's hot and charming, and makes girls weep at his beauty, but he's a fucking dick. He acts all high and mighty about "boundaries" and "respecting them" that he MUST feel above the law to completely go against his word.

"It shouldn't be sweet of a man to respect a woman's boundaries. It should be common sense. Sweet implies that it's a sacrifice on the man's part, an act of gargantuan selflessness. That isn't how it should be at all."

He immediately goes against this when they re-enact a rape scene and he completely shreds her boundaries and pushes her to do something SHE DOESN'T WANT TO DO. They set boundaries early on in the novel and she says a big fat NO to anal, so what does he do? Not only does he RAPE her, but he sticks a finger in her ass, and tells her to shut up when she tells him to stop.

Tristan is psychotic. I don't like him HATE him. The things he said and did made me sick to my stomach. I get that, sometimes, in BDSM, people get off on humiliation, but he did it constantly to Kelly -- in and out of the bedroom. It went beyond teasing to embarrassing her, and I hated him for it.

"Why do you tease me but I can't tease you?"
"Because I'm the Dom, sweet pony girl."
That makes my face heat up. "No. Don't call me that."
"I can call you whatever I want," he says. "And you have to answer to it."

*growls*

"Take a sip."
"It's hot."
"So blow on it."

What if she doesn't want to fucking drink the fucking hot cup of tea you insensitive fucktard?

"Gang bangs? Vore?" He bites down on my lower lip briefly. "That's a fetish for being eaten alive, by the way."
"That's disgusting. I don't like that! I would never--"
"Scat? Necrophilia? Or perhaps what you like is seeing all those sweet little ponies of yours fuck each other raw."
I flinch. It's like he's slapped me.

You can CLEARLY see she's not comfortable with the topic, but he's relentless, driving her over the edge, HUMILIATING her into giving him answers. It's sickening! And what does she do? She LETS him. She doesn't slap him, like a normal person would, she cries and LETS him.

He has no regard to her sexual preferences. Kelly explicitly states she doesn't know if she can, or knows how to, perform oral sex and instead of talking to her about it, he says, "Yes you do" and SHOVES HIS DICK ON HER FACE. Practically FORCING it into her mouth!

Tristan constantly calls her degrading names like "slut", "cum-slut", "whore", "pony girl".

"You're the cheap slut boys think about when they jerk off to even cheaper porn."

You aren't worthy to be in my head when I come."

"Just look at you, writhing around like a whore."

And what irked me more? He was selfish and inconsiderate in bed. He NEVER waited for her to finish when they were having sex. It was VERY wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Half the time, Kelly is left frustrated and aroused and has to take care of herself because Tristan doesn't give a crap.

He's a fucking asshole, and all the things he said and did did nothing but upset me. I spent more time trying to control my emotions so I didn't end up hurling my Kindle at the wall than actually enjoying the story. Fucking prick.

Now, I'm going to talk about Kelly.

I felt sorry for her. I did. This poor girl is a virgin and since revealing her feelings to the man she loves, instead of the happily ever after she was expecting, she's hurled into a relationship with a Dom who doesn't know how to look out for her. And he DOESN'T know how to look out for her, because he treats her like dirt. Half the time, I was pissed that she wouldn't listen to her friends when they said "he's odd", "I don't trust him" and the other half, I was pissed that she wouldn't just walk away and drop him.

All the time, she was worrying about HIS feelings, what HE was thinking, how HE was feeling.

"I want to make sure he's okay with everything that happened. That will mean that everything is okay with me, too."

What?

She BLAMES herself so many times for his feelings.

"Because I know at least part of his sleeplessness is my fault."

But she doesn't walk away. She feels humiliated, disgusted, shocked at how things are turning out, but she can't walk away.

And that makes me so, so sad.


The writing.

Ask anyone -- I am a huge fan of Nenia. I adore that woman, I do, and usually, her writing is brilliant; it flows, it can be sensual, or it can feel urgent. She has a way with words that bring the words on the pages to life.

I didn't get that in Bound to Accept though, and I'm going to go as far as to say that Nenia didn't feel comfortable whilst writing it. Why? You can tell by the writing, by how it's stilted and awkward. It's not her. I'm not saying I'm some Nenia-professional, because I'm not. I've only read a handful of her books (and have the rest on my TBR) but you can see the difference straight away.

In this book, it came off as wrong and a lot of it didn't make sense. The descriptions were plain awkward:

"[His penis] is read and glistening, with thick purple veins that wrap around it like the garland on a Christmas tree."

It's nonsensical:

"His penis is just as big as the glass one-- rosy testicles, darkening to a dusky beige, with a plum-colored tip."

And downright weird:

"Why are you embarrassed? Was it something really kinky? Like tentacle porn? A whole bunch of glistening tentacles, invading your every orifice... Is that what gets you off, moonshine?"

*Shudder*

I'm not expert on erotica, but I always thought that erotica was meant to be, y'know, erotic, sexy, sensual. This... wasn't.

Sometimes, instead of being sexy, it was funny.

"Do you know what I just realized semen smells like? It smells like that artificial butter they put on popcorn at the movies."

"His belly slaps against mine with every thrust, making this light, clapping sound."

Erm.

Do not click on the spoiler link, IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED. Major spoilers, in the spoiler link. In case you don't figure it out, SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER.

The rape scene. I cried. I fucking cried, it was so awful, so upsetting. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was happening, Kelly was being RAPED, and no matter how many times she said "no", "stop", "get off", Tristan DIDN'T. I don't give a shit that she didn't use her safeword. It fucked me off that he didn't respect any of her boundaries, her forced himself upon her, he CUT HER. WITH A FUCKING KNIFE. I felt so sick. It made me want to vomit the dinner I'd just had.

The thing is, I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be bad, just like Kelly knew. I have no idea why it affected me so much, but even just writing about it makes me want to burst into tears all over again. It was far too traumatic, too awful, to even put into words. Thumbs up to Nenia for having managed to WRITE it. I just... I couldn't deal with it. It ruined the book for me. And Kelly, going back to Tristan after that? Fuck no. Fuck that. She should have kicked him to the curb.







__________________________________________________

I'm so, so sorry, Nenia.

Review to come.


EDIT 29/08/2014

It's pay day! So guess who's buying BOUND TO ACCEPT today?!





EDIT 15/08/2014

So here I'm sat, wishing I could get my hands on Bound to Accept and not wait until the end of the month, when Amazon pings me an email that says because I have it on my wishlist, I should probably read the Look Inside.

So I did read the Look Inside.

AND NOW I'M EVEN MORE EXCITED!



I may die. If I do, please send a copy of BtA to Heaven. I'll need some kinky fuckery up there.


27/07/2014

ERMAGHERD I'M SO EXCITED. HERE COMES THE GLITTER BOMB!



I don't care what it is, if Nenia writes it, I will read it...



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