2/5. Highlights may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Content Warnings for book: Survival sex work, dubious consent, blackmail, kidnapping, homophobia, lack of lube

Kink: Lace and lingerie, sex toys, JOI, praise kink, cock warming, degradation, humiliation, spanking, outfit control, double penetration

God, where do I begin.

The writing is very repetitive in its metaphors and sex scenes. It is as if the author doesn’t know how else to describe the brothers or how they make Axel feels about them — you know that she describes them as a “storm” about every chapter?

Some of the writing is very fanfic. “Member”, “tongues battled for dominance”, stuff like that which it is hard to deny that writing forged in such crucibles as Wattpad or Ao3. The PoV switching is odd too. There are three “parts”, which PoV goes Axel, Dean, Axel. Axel’s is first person, while Dean’s is third person and also jumps around in time instead of being a continual narrative. Eric is apparently getting his PoV in the second book.

Now, for the uh, “plot”. This book is 224 pages and I think if you cut out the sex it’d be 50. Maybe. Now for all you erotica lovers out there you might be excited! However the issue is the sex isn’t particularly… interesting. They do different stuff, sometimes, but how can you have three dudes and not one spit-roast? Come on now. The one sex scene I liked is the very beginning because I was amused by the on-going sex/semi-cockwarming between scene changes.

Also, Eric was just there. Dean is clearly framed as the main “love interest”, while Eric just kinda watches (literally and figuratively). I assume this changes in his book, but still.

The actual gist of what happens in this book? Here it is, if you don’t want to read it but want to know:

Spoiler

The brothers blackmail Axel into being a sex slave and have the ability to do so because his father robbed them of money somehow. Apparently they have been in love with him for a while, as they knew each other since they were all teenagers. Dean has nightmares but Axel makes them go away. When they mean sex slave it’s exactly that, and if he doesn’t comply his dog will die on the streets and his grandmother’s medical and nursing home bills unpaid while he goes to prison. At the very end the grandmother hints that his father would have possibly trafficked him and then they fuck in a limousine while he says ‘I love you’ to the brothers and to keep him forever.

No, I’m not joking. It was that easy to condense the plot. Just because it’s paced like a BL (which is fine, author writes BL), doesn’t mean it has to be so devoid of content.

I’m sure you’re thinking that I must’ve left things out — but questions like “why does Dean have nightmares?” “How did Axel’s family steal from them?” “What’s the age gap between the brothers or between Axel and them?” “Do they work? Where does their wealth come from?”

Couldn’t fucking tell you as it’s not in the book. Also using a dog as a manipulator is a new low. Groveling doesn’t seem to exist either.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll read the next book. This book was just wild.