Stacia in Progress

Well since you mentioned it, Mary Beth... this cover does look familiar...I shall dub this the Book of Many Plots, or Pass the Salt, Slut. 1.5 stars. The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised/frustrated that we weren't warned about what was going to happen in the last part of the book like we normally would be with dark erotica. There should be a trigger warning in that synopsis which goes beyond mention of fantasies because not everything that happens is a fantasy. "Strong BDSM themes" does not cut it. I feel the need to have to put up a spoiler warning. There's no way to get into what frustrated me about Never Have I Ever without listing it all out. I'm going to just want to let it all fly and speak of whatever I want to speak about. So if you have any intention of reading this book, be warned that you might have parts of it spoiled for you if you continue to read any further.Continuing on...What I wanted is not what this book delivered. I thought I was going to get a story involving party games which revealed dark fantasies, and the lengths that the characters would go in order to fulfill those fantasies. I actually wanted to read THAT story. I was hoping for another fetish book similar to Willing Victim (man-handling is my weakness). Unfortunately, that was only about 10% of the entire idea. I wish there'd been more in the synopsis about how dark this book would turn (not opposed to dark, I just want to know before I read a book, so I can read according to mood). I didn't realize we'd evolve from play fantasies into something that went far beyond play.Instead, we had multiple, warring plots going on here.Is the book supposed to be happy fluff romance, a BDSM training erotica, a suspense/thriller book, or a dark and twisted erotica? You can't put all of that in one book and not expect people to get whiplash. Either we're playing happy couple, or we're partying like kids, or we're learning how to play slut to our master, or we're running from evil rapists - there shouldn't be that many plot turns in one book! Here's the recap (one or two steps may be out of order - it was a lot to remember) :~ Teenage party games leads to...~ Rape fantasy scene played out (non-structured) leads to...~ An awkward date leads to...~ A hard edged jump into the world of D/s, complete with a plethora of props and name degradation leads to...~ Office and public sex leads to...~ Being trained by another dom leads to...~ Meeting the business partner brother who is an ahole leads to...~ The original couple back to being fluffy happy and talking about all the "never have I evers" they want to fulfill together leads to...~ A whirlwind travel and adventure fest where the chick is spoiled by riches leads to...~ The chick meeting the "supposedly dead" ex leads to...~ Serious HARDCORE WTFERY and kidnap and rape and abuse leads to...~ More dark WTFERY leads to...~ A happy end scene? Did you get all that??? Even though I felt swindled into reading something that wasn't what I was expecting, I can give credit where credit is due. The author does have some decent talent as a story-teller. Obviously, the person put a lot of effort into crafting a timeline and series of events. And I will say that there were parts of the book which did entertain me. I loved that very first "fantasy play" scene in Piper's apartment, and could have easily read 10 more of those types of scenes before the relationship went into structured BDSM hell. I'm all for name calling in the bedroom when it's sexy. I love a man who knows when to use phrases such as, "you love being my dirty little whore, dontcha?" Too bad it didn't work for me in this book. Noah was calling Piper "slut" at the most random times and it never ever came across as sexy. I get that it was probably used in this instance as a means to show power that Dom had over sub, but "slut" was being thrown around in such a way that it was almost to the point where it was inserted into conversations even when it felt like he wasn't exerting much power. I half expected him to start asking her to pass the salt, slut.People, I had over 50 notes and marks in this book.I just started to go through all of my marked quotes and notes and realized that there's no way in hell I could do any big commentary because picking through my notes would take way too much time. So I won't. However, I will add that a lot of these notes were jotted down due to awkward sentence structure (see comments below for my thoughts on the -oh shit- debacle). There were several sentences which seemed to make little sense, as well as a few which were just plain silly. Here's a quick example of a sentence which made me cringe a little : I mewled and squirmed above him like a bitch in heat.The writing had some issues up-front (several pages of character and clothing description) but I felt like much of that fell away once the pace started moving. Again, imaginative story-telling wasn't the issue. With at least 2 or so of the plot devices removed (and a synopsis rework to let us know what we're getting into) this could be a halfway decent book. If you were brave enough to read the spoilers and are still considering reading this book, let's see if you'll be a good fit. If you like dark erotica with a suspense twist and don't mind another dominating, ultra-rich, perfect man (who can cook, speaks multiple languages, and will whisk you away to exotic locales while showering you with expensive jewelry) as a main character (which is something I'm truly over - die billionaire trend, die!), then you will probably enjoy this MUCH more than I did.