Dysmorphia reviewed Club Shadowlands by Cherise Sinclair
Review of 'Club Shadowlands' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Meh. Problematic, but not in a hot way. Pretty much the entire book is sex scenes, btw. I'm sure it's somebody's cup of tea. For me it was all the parts of D/s that annoy me, while skipping almost all the parts I think are nice.
What annoys me: the assumption that all subs will defer to all doms, the idea that all women secretly want to submit because in our modern day and age we are stressed out by responsibility (such sneaky antifeminsm that), acting like your book is all consent-savvy and then having shitty consent practices. (I am totally cool with shitty consent in fantasy fiction, cause you know, fiction! but don't paint it as being all enlightened and then fuck up on consent. Either you're doing realistic consent or you can go all crazy Story of O and De Sade mode, but this in between shit is …
Meh. Problematic, but not in a hot way. Pretty much the entire book is sex scenes, btw. I'm sure it's somebody's cup of tea. For me it was all the parts of D/s that annoy me, while skipping almost all the parts I think are nice.
What annoys me: the assumption that all subs will defer to all doms, the idea that all women secretly want to submit because in our modern day and age we are stressed out by responsibility (such sneaky antifeminsm that), acting like your book is all consent-savvy and then having shitty consent practices. (I am totally cool with shitty consent in fantasy fiction, cause you know, fiction! but don't paint it as being all enlightened and then fuck up on consent. Either you're doing realistic consent or you can go all crazy Story of O and De Sade mode, but this in between shit is actually pretty gross)
I read this because it was on a list of books better than 50SG that explore similar themes. The prose was better. It was technically a decent book.
But what is sexy is like what is funny. And this was not funny.