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Monday, December 21, 2015

ARC Review: Subordination by Katie Ashley


I have to start by saying that I knew going into this book, it was going to be a tough sell for me. If you have read any pass review by me you know that they almost all reference my love for strong alpha male heroes. In fact, this is the first book I've ever read about a female domme. I picked this book up because of the author and my interest in the synopsis. I say all of this to say that if you are reader who other likes or does not mind a female dominant, you should take my review with a tremendous grain of salt because this book might be perfect for you.

When this book opens Sophie is a professional domme who has been working her way through college by dominating men at the local BDSM Club. It was particularly interesting to me that when we meet Sophie, she is a domme in the purely professional sense. If sophie had a relationship while working at the club, it didn't include any BDSM elements. Similarly, her domination practice at the club did not include any sexual elements. I just found it fascinating lips so she was so involved in the BDSM lifestyle well not exactly being involved in it.

Sophie meets William on her last day of work at the club before she is set to start her new job and her new life. Sophie initially agrees to one night of play with William but it is clear that her scene with William is nothing like what she did as a purely professional matter. From the first encounter sophie has with William, she discovers that she can derive sexual pleasure as a dominant and that was William it's something she wants to do. Sophie figures that there is no point pursuing relationship with William since she is relocating in the next few days. Through a series of coincidences, however, Sophie winds up spending more time with William then she planned and starts to consider whether she might want to enter until an actual D/s relationship.

What I found really interesting about this book was a little Sophie knew about being a dominant in a relationship. Part of the ongoing struggle between Sophie and William is that William wants the D /s relationship and Sophie simply isn't sure if she could give it to him. This is also where one of my issues with this book is located. I have read quite a few BDSM books with male dominants and there are always very strict boundaries for how a dominant interacts with a submissive. I had a hard time dealing with Sophie's lack of knowledge about how a dominant is supposed to care for a submissive while at the same time switching back and forth in wanting William to submit to her when it was convenient. For example, William give Sophie two of his hard limits the very first time they play together. Almost immediately, sophie is attempting to push William beyond his limit and daring him to safe word. I'm not sure if that was a function of Sophie's inexperience but usually a dominant doesnt start pushing a submissive until the dominant knows all the details of the hard limit and knows that they won't hurt the sub by pushing the limit. I really didn't like Sophie pushing William right away. In my opinion, it made her a bad dominant without regard to gender.

The other issue that I had with Sophie is that as you might imagine a female dominant can come across as being kind of a b****. In this case, it wasn't something that was limited to the D / s interactions between Sophie and William. When Sophie and William run into what seems an insurmountable obstacle to the two of them being in any kind of relationship, Sophie plays the role of the pragmatic unfeeling character while William is basically begging her to give them a chance. I just didn't like the dynamic. There were too many scenes where Sophie it's just kind of rude to William. In fact one scene really stood out in my mind in which Sophie threatens to slap William but then jokes that he would actually like that. It's hard for me to deal with a man that would find that amusing and it's even harder to deal with one who would find that arousing. For his part, Williams seemed like a really good guy but I just couldn't help feeling like he was weak and I didn't like that. Interestingly, maybe because of deeply ingrained gender bias, I have not had the same feeling about female submissives. Even though I readily admit there might be some bias in there, I think part of that is because of Sophie's depiction in this story. I just had a hard time enjoying Sophia as a character.

I'm going to end like I began by telling you that if you like books about female dominants, I think that you will love this one. If you are like me, this is an OK one to try but you will probably find yourself longing for the alpha heroes that we love so much.

**ARC Provided by TRSOR Promotions**

Purchase: | Amazon |


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