Customer Reviews

D/S: An Anti-Love Story

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(42)

 

 

I wanted to like this book because I'd heard positive things about it, also because it supposedly treated BDSM in a realistic & intelligent fashion. Unfortunately, this is one of those books whose characters are immediately annoying & the narrator's voice is hopelessly flippant and arrogant. One third of the way into it and I was hoping the main character Perry would end up with a ball gag in his mouth and his hands chained somewhere far from his typewriter keys. Alas, it wasn't to be. This book may be breaking new ground, joining the mystery genre with that of erotic fiction, but it just doesn't read very well.

The author succeeds in creating an untrustworthy narrator who reads like a true psycho. However, the plot is thin, the characters one-dimensional lampoons, and the writing simply terribly, painfully bad. For example, during a scene in a mall foodcourt, the author writes, "... the conversation laced with sexual innuendo blurred my hearing." I did a quick internet search, and found exactly two references to "blurred hearing," both of these being for a rock band out of Baja, Californina. In other words, I was correct in my assessment: Kadet mixes metaphors like a cement truck in an earthquake. If you're looking for good BDSM-related fiction, I suggest you stick with the professionals like Cecelia Tan, John Warren, and Anne Rampling. Even for the work of an amateur, this book leaves much to be desired.

As an "anti-love story" D/S is an utter success, since no reader can empathize enough with the cliched characters to even admit the possibility of love or emotion. D/S, while purporting to humanize the BDSM scene, instead performs the cruel sleight of hand of illustrating the ordinariness of scene participants and making them all the more hideous for that; he seems to take particular glee, for example, in critiquing the physical appearance of the suburbanites in the scene and equating it with their kinkiness and moral decay. It's a slap in the face for anyone interested in the scene and Kadet's criticism ultimately stinks more of playground insults rather than biting social commentary; it doesn't take much skill to insult an entire sexual subculture based on the attractiveness or unattractiveness of its characters.In addition, Kadet's attempt at postmodern literary structure--telling the story through narrative and other materials--fails miserably, as his pages and pages of online chat transcript clog an already bloated tale. Added to this is an unusually tepid murder plot, which is again, more reminiscent of a Very Special Episode of a television police drama--it is bland, predictable and a plot device that has been worn to death in media dealings with BDSM. Likewise, Kadet's ultimate conclusion that BDSM is the last refuge for the terminally abused and power hungry (and let's not forget the unattractive!) is ultimately a foolish exercise. If Kadet had wanted to truly tell an innovative story, he could have shown at least some kinky characters as well adjusted, or heaven forbid, happy, rather than retreading trite and stereotypical portrayals of kinky people and describing it as an artistic landmark. In this case readers looking for kinky thrills, a peek into the sexual underground or even scene information would be much better served looking elsewhere. Don't bother with D/S.

Perry Patetic is a sad, deranged madman with a persecution complex- and that is the least of his worries. This is a dizzying tour through the mind of a lunatic. The scenes are half-fulfilled promises that never deliver. The author neglects description for lame similies and forgoes plot for atmosphere.

I find nothing erotic, nothing clever, nothing worth reading. I'd suggest something like "Screw The Roses, Send me the Thorns" if you want to learn about D/s and such...

It is clear that Kadet knows the crime genre well, and he does succeed somewhat in producing a convincing, if not always interesting, murder story. It could be a lot better. The characters are unfortunately very one-dimensional, often seeming to exist solely to serve as plot devices (a common mistake of beginning writers, and the author should know better), and his treatment of the SM "scene" as it were is riddled with cliches, and, oddly enough, a prim, sexually repressed conservatism.

It is clear from the writing that the author has an axe to grind and a war to wage against the kinky community-- however much his self-justifying tone might turn the reader off (and however laughable it might seem to those who actually know the BDSM community), the real damage is to the quality of his writing. It amazes me that his editor did not call him on this-- it is exactly the sort of rhetorical trap that a more seasoned writer would know better than to fall into.

Not worth buying until it arrives in "Buck-a-Book".

The only thing worse than reading about Perry Patetic is probably
BEING Perry. Perry is a dark and tortured soul, ascribing the
sicknesses within himself to those around him. Unable to heal himself,
he instead villifies those around him.

Aided by a triad of evil
accomplices...he embarks on a campaign of terror, intimidation, and
harassment of the world in general, but the BDSM underground in
particular.

The writing and grammar are as insane as Perry. Think
"Naked Lunch" done as an epic haiku. Not even a nod towards
standards of plot, grammar, or sentence structure here. This otherwise
vivid peek into the mind of an evil madman ultimately proves to be
amateurish and painfully unreadable.

Not much here except a disjointed and poorly written jumble of mixed metaphors and amateurish puns. No plot, no story, no humanity, no sensuality, no fun to read at all.

Here's a not-very-good novelistic treatment of the s/m scene. As an s/m scene player myself, I found very little here that rings true, and as a reader of crime fiction, I found weak characters, a middling plot and a total lack of psychological depth. For me the worst aspect was the social satire; I found it less pithy than pitiful. I will give the author a point or two for daring to grapple with the so-called sexual underground, though his notion of "decadence" is fairly tame. Half a cheer and hopes for a better performance in the future.

I read the prologue of D/s and just had to know what happened to Perry, the reluctant hero of the book. The pace slowed a bit in the first few chapters, and I feared this would be a 'slow' book. I needn't have worried! Perry's dark, erotic, sometimes hilarious world pulled me in so that I resented any interruption of my reading time right up until I reached the end. Many of the lines made me laugh out loud, and just as many had me choked up with emotion. It all kept me fascinated as I walked through this complex, compelling world. Congrats to Gary Kadet on a sensational debut!

"D/s" portrays BDSM in a light that many of the other S&M writings do not, such as Laura Reese's Panic Snap, which tells a tale of abuse. D/s is about the consensual, the emotion and the beauty that true BDSM players know of and feel so pulled by.

The characters are true of any walk of life, some of them intelligent, some not so, some fat, some thin, a cross-section of humanity as in all walks of life.

The tale is fiction, but full of life's lessons, wisdom, trappings and failings.

"D/s" is a book not to be missed by those who dabble in the dark side and by those who don't!