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A review by aydotjaydot
Sated by Rebekah Weatherspoon
2.0
I really wanted to like this more. I think if it had another 40-50K words and dug into the characters in they way they deserved, this would be a shoe-in for 5 stars. This is the bones of a great novel and I will own that my enjoyment is probably hindered by me reading this and none of the other novellas first. I'm hoping a lot more world building happened in those stories because it did not happen in this book.
And I will say that I am sad at how choppy and disjointed this ended up being. I thought Kiera was great! I loved that she was explicitly nerdy and in to fandom. I loved her online bestie and that she figured herself out pretty well, but was super in to learning and self-exploration.
But.
There needed to be a whole heap more put into her continued life. Her friend disappeared when she seemed like she'd have been a good sounding board for Kiera to bounce the evolution of her BDSM awakening. Heck, if there'd been an on-page conversation between Kiera and her eventual mentor, that would have helped a lot. OR if there'd been more of a conversation between Daniel and Kiera at the end, this would have been a lot better.
Actually, let's also talk about Daniel. Because he's a mess. Not exactly in his actions? But in the way he is executed as a character. As written, he is incredibly flat and one note. Which is not how the novella starts at all? His intro is very strong! He has a job, he has a brother, he has friends and loves his mom. He's also a switch who's heavy involved with a kink club and who is upper echelon in said club. But it's when that's brought in that he just gets flattened out to only being that. Which would be a cool thing to explore, but it just doesn't get explored. We have minimal exposure to Daniel in any of his roles after the sex starts. His job happens, kinda, but we have only one interaction between him and one of the club characters (other than Armando, but we don't get DANIEL and his convo's, just Kiera walking in or her POV.) And while Evelyne is cool as hell, it smacks of tell not show. Most of Daniel is tell, not show, and the two VERY jarring time jumps (which are kinda hand waved emotionally when they absolutely should NOT BE) do not help this in the slightest.
As it stands, this feels like a book written on a deadline where the author just didn't have time to finish the full book before turning it in. And that's frustrating because she IS good. Weatherspoon is VERY good. I want more of her words and worlds and more than anything, that's why this novella disappointed me.
I will definitely keep an eye on this author, but will likely only try again when she releases a full-length book.
And I will say that I am sad at how choppy and disjointed this ended up being. I thought Kiera was great! I loved that she was explicitly nerdy and in to fandom. I loved her online bestie and that she figured herself out pretty well, but was super in to learning and self-exploration.
But.
There needed to be a whole heap more put into her continued life. Her friend disappeared when she seemed like she'd have been a good sounding board for Kiera to bounce the evolution of her BDSM awakening. Heck, if there'd been an on-page conversation between Kiera and her eventual mentor, that would have helped a lot. OR if there'd been more of a conversation between Daniel and Kiera at the end, this would have been a lot better.
Actually, let's also talk about Daniel. Because he's a mess. Not exactly in his actions? But in the way he is executed as a character. As written, he is incredibly flat and one note. Which is not how the novella starts at all? His intro is very strong! He has a job, he has a brother, he has friends and loves his mom. He's also a switch who's heavy involved with a kink club and who is upper echelon in said club. But it's when that's brought in that he just gets flattened out to only being that. Which would be a cool thing to explore, but it just doesn't get explored. We have minimal exposure to Daniel in any of his roles after the sex starts. His job happens, kinda, but we have only one interaction between him and one of the club characters (other than Armando, but we don't get DANIEL and his convo's, just Kiera walking in or her POV.) And while Evelyne is cool as hell, it smacks of tell not show. Most of Daniel is tell, not show, and the two VERY jarring time jumps (which are kinda hand waved emotionally when they absolutely should NOT BE) do not help this in the slightest.
As it stands, this feels like a book written on a deadline where the author just didn't have time to finish the full book before turning it in. And that's frustrating because she IS good. Weatherspoon is VERY good. I want more of her words and worlds and more than anything, that's why this novella disappointed me.
I will definitely keep an eye on this author, but will likely only try again when she releases a full-length book.