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i think the books that irritate me the most are those that have a story seed of something valuable and characters i could come to care for, which then gets squandered bit by bit until nothing is left.
i thought i'd give claire thompson another chance, despite my prior disappointment with masked submission. this time i read golden boy, the story of johnny wilson and eric méndez.
( long, even for me, and contains some explicitly sexual language )
i thought i'd give claire thompson another chance, despite my prior disappointment with masked submission. this time i read golden boy, the story of johnny wilson and eric méndez.
( long, even for me, and contains some explicitly sexual language )
nature paints ugly things too
Jun. 22nd, 2008 22:26albeit in more muted colour schemes.
smut that annoyed me:
claire thompson's masked submission. dylan is searching for something more, something deeper than random play scenes, and he thinks he might have found it in tomas, a mysterious, masked dom he meets at an exclusive BDSM club. they have a definite connection, and dylan falls in love -- except even at their closest tomas will not unmask himself, he remains distant and that hurts dylan.
the rollercoaster ride of his new love and the submissive feelings it brings out in dylan make him confide in his thesis advisor jack, who's come out as gay and dominant to him during their blossoming friendship. jack seems to be developing deeper feelings for him, and things come to a head after a drunken tumble in bed. but dylan can't give up his fantasy love, and jack has ... secrets.
ok, so overall this isn't all bad (if a bit overly dramatic at times), which is probably why the big scene towards the ending really really annoys me. there's the usual amount of squick because of too much pain (which i don't grok) and too much humiliation (which makes me a bit nauseated), and this book didn't help me feel less squicked, but that's not what i am talking about. no, what's stuck in my craw is that after all the talk about trusting in your dom even when the dom really pushes your comfort envelope -- trusting even when you're very much afraid, because your dom has promised he will be there and watch over you, and have your back, _this_ dom isn't there and isn't watching, he leaves dylan in the hands of other people, and dylan almost gets badly hurt (and not in the good way).
now, it's not totally swept under the carpet because the dom rides in as a knight in shining armour at the last moment, and feels guilty afterwards and promises himself to never let this happen again, but if i had been dylan, i would have ripped the dom's face off, and it would have been a long time before i would have trusted him again. because this wasn't a small oversight or some unforeseeable accident; the scene was planned this way, and the dom's vetting of the other people was terrible -- everything was about pushing dylan (and consequently making himself look good), but he seemed to put no thought into keeping dylan safe while pushing him way beyond his comfort zone. and this after he'd already gone through one major trust issue with dylan (which he also fucked up).
grade-A prick. it spoiled the entire relationship for me. it also turned dylan into a doormat, and i rather liked him at the start.
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smut that annoyed me:
claire thompson's masked submission. dylan is searching for something more, something deeper than random play scenes, and he thinks he might have found it in tomas, a mysterious, masked dom he meets at an exclusive BDSM club. they have a definite connection, and dylan falls in love -- except even at their closest tomas will not unmask himself, he remains distant and that hurts dylan.
the rollercoaster ride of his new love and the submissive feelings it brings out in dylan make him confide in his thesis advisor jack, who's come out as gay and dominant to him during their blossoming friendship. jack seems to be developing deeper feelings for him, and things come to a head after a drunken tumble in bed. but dylan can't give up his fantasy love, and jack has ... secrets.
ok, so overall this isn't all bad (if a bit overly dramatic at times), which is probably why the big scene towards the ending really really annoys me. there's the usual amount of squick because of too much pain (which i don't grok) and too much humiliation (which makes me a bit nauseated), and this book didn't help me feel less squicked, but that's not what i am talking about. no, what's stuck in my craw is that after all the talk about trusting in your dom even when the dom really pushes your comfort envelope -- trusting even when you're very much afraid, because your dom has promised he will be there and watch over you, and have your back, _this_ dom isn't there and isn't watching, he leaves dylan in the hands of other people, and dylan almost gets badly hurt (and not in the good way).
now, it's not totally swept under the carpet because the dom rides in as a knight in shining armour at the last moment, and feels guilty afterwards and promises himself to never let this happen again, but if i had been dylan, i would have ripped the dom's face off, and it would have been a long time before i would have trusted him again. because this wasn't a small oversight or some unforeseeable accident; the scene was planned this way, and the dom's vetting of the other people was terrible -- everything was about pushing dylan (and consequently making himself look good), but he seemed to put no thought into keeping dylan safe while pushing him way beyond his comfort zone. and this after he'd already gone through one major trust issue with dylan (which he also fucked up).
grade-A prick. it spoiled the entire relationship for me. it also turned dylan into a doormat, and i rather liked him at the start.
western painted turtle
Jun. 17th, 2008 21:19 |
running from me at buttertubs marsh. i wonder about that bright red colouration -- what's that good for? mate attractor? it really draws the eye, and makes the turtle NOT blend in with the environment. |
walklog:
6-17 long mailbox loop, 2.41 km, 0:27, new personal best. note to self: do NOT start doing this, checking the timer at the bottom of the hill and then pushing yourself up that last bit just to beat your previous time. you know what that leads to, and it's not good for you. take the seconds off that time above. there. better.
insomnia with smut reading apparently leads to me walking faster. *snrk*.
best smut read:
sean michael's catching a second wind. dakota lost his life partner of 16 years less than a year ago, and he thinks he's coping pretty well, considering. but there's something just not right with him at work. as a veterinarian he's got to occasionally euthanize an animal, and while that was never something he liked doing, now it leaves him shaking and hurling his guts out. his partners in the practice think he should see a psychologist. he's not keen on that, but what the heck. ben, the psychologist, turns out to be sympathetic, a good listener, and a fine looking man, even if he asks uncomfortable questions.
this wasn't actually a real smut read for me. not because the smut is bad, it's in fact quite good. but because stories in which people have lost their life partner bring up memories, and those memories don't go well with smut. the story itself is very good, and i'd recommend it to anyone -- except, you know, the m/m smut which is not everyone's taste. *wry grin*. all the mixed feelings dakota has about getting involved with somebody else so soon, the agony of the loss, the guilt of living, the quandary of having a new lover in the place built with the old. dakota is very well written. ben is maybe a little bit too good to be true -- even psychologists get the blues, and a tad more insecurity wouldn't have hurt for somebody just out of college; he felt like a much older, wiser man to me. but i didn't care that much because i could identify with dakota's feelings and because i was ruminating over my own memories. it was a very satisfying read because so much of it rang true for me even if the details were completely different.
 |
walklog:
6-14 jack point, 4.73 km 1:43, elevation gain 305m. the good part was the light on the way back. the not-so-good part was the sun in my eyes all the way out; forgot about that. tide was in, so no puttering around tidal pools. saw ravens chase a bald eagle. newly blooming: alumroot, couple of as-yet mystery plants.
best smut read:
mike shade -- dust and violets -- jason bought violet house, a run-down victorian, in order to restore it to its former glory. when he settles in and explores, he finds out that no prior occupant stayed for long in the house, and the neighbours think the house is haunted. but jason doesn't believe in ghosts. it's probably mice, or squirrels, or a racoon that keep moving his stuff around. and the cold drafts the source of which he hasn't found yet -- well, old houses are drafty. but some of those breezes are ... interesting, to say the least.
i don't usually care a whole lot for supernatural stuff, but this one was touching. also, hot. :) the house is almost a character in itself, and i really enjoyed that -- but then i also love watching this old house. i had a bit of a problem with the crisis -- the way it was done i didn't see it coming and didn't understand why jason did what he did, and i think it could have been foreshadowed much better. but i liked the resolution, and am fine with it being somewhat open as to whether joshua really is who jason believes he is.
