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A review by iam
Firm Hand by Nora Phoenix
Did not finish book.
DNF @ 41%
Oh dear, this made me so uncomfortable.
Content warnings include: car accident leading to death and injury that leads to disability, BDSM and kink (D/s, sensory play, supposedly reverse daddy kink but the part that I read had none of that), unconsensual D/s, unconsensual aided masturbation, mentions of incestuous D/s relationship between father and son condoned by the main characters.
This started out a bit awkward. There is no explanation as to what Cornell and Rhys's relationship is like other than Rhys being Cornell's best friend's son and Cornell being Rhys's godfather. I had no idea if they were friendly, only talked during awkward christmas phonecalls, or if Cornell was more friend or uncle or stranger to Rhys.
This missing background made it all a bit weird and hard to judge, but ultimately it didn't matter because the discomfort makes it irrelevant.
The writing was okay for the most part, but I wasn't really engaged. I didn't find myself wanting to read on, but it would have been okay if not for it making me so uncomfortable.
(After this it gets a bit spoiler-y.)
After the death of Jonas, Rhys's dad and Cornell's best friend, a severely injured Cornell stays with trained physical therapist Rhys to recuperate. Cornell is a sub and occasionally scened with Jonas, who is also a sub. Rhys is a Dom and knows about Cornell, but Cornell doesn't know about Rhys. Rhys has also had the hots for Cornell for a while now (this isn't explicitly stated but I got the impression?) and he..... wants to use this opportunity to both get closer to Cornell and "prove to him he's all grown up and not a kid anymore."
Which already raises the first few flags. Rhys is 23 and Cornell is 45, which is a considerable age gap. Even with the background of Cornell being Rhys's godfather and essentially watching him grow up could be overcome, but Rhys feeling the need to "prove" himself to be mature is decidedly NOT a good start to that.
Furthermore, Rhys's train of thought from "Cornell is grieving my dad and freshly disabled after the accident" to "I can invite him to stay with me and care for him to get closer to him so we can scene together" is just plain creepy.
But it gets even worse. Rhys, who is very much aware of Cornell being a sub, uses that knowledge and his "Dom ways" on an unknowing Cornell from the very beginning, without Cornell's consent.
This behaviour is called out by more than one person and it is handled as an issue, yet Rhys doesn't seem to realize what he did was wrong at all and objects when people tell him he is essentially manipulating Cornell, that he is on the slippery slope to abusing him, all because "I would never hurt him, I'm doing this to help him!"
And even when people tell Rhys to stop, he doesn't really stop and it's kind of brushed off and ultimately has barely any consequences.
Consent and communication keeps to be an issue in this book in other context's too. In one scene Rhys aids a sleeping Cornell in having an orgasm, and even through indirect touching that is creepy as fuck, and, once again, he didn't have Cornell's consent.
But this stuff isn't just coming from Rhys's direction.
Cornell, too, behaves uncomfortably, acting like Rhys betrayed him by not telling him earlier that he's a Dom. Should Rhys have told him? Yes, he should have as soon as he deliberately leaned on Cornell's instincts as a sub. But before that? No??? Why would he tell his godfather about his sexual perferences???? Rhys had every right not to tell Cornell, and yet Cornell is upset about not knowing way earlier before the accident. Which is weird in itself because he is mortified about Rhys knowing he's a sub, and then continuous being uncomfortable with talking about Jonas's and his own sex life with Rhys.
Consent issues aside, when I got to the first scene where they did scene with explicit consent.... even that felt off to me. Yes, consent is there, and yes, they use safewords, but boundaries? Nope, no communication at all, and minutes before that scene they were still talking about how Rhys refuses to acknowledge he was manipulating Cornell and Cornell was mad at him. Not the best setup for a scene????
What finally tipped this over the edge was when Cornell thinks about what other people would think about Rhys domming him, specifically what Jonas would think. In a completely random and unfitting example he thinks back to a couple he knows, an older Dom and younger sub who were completely in synch which each other.... who turned out to be father and son. He then goes on about how they were kicked out of multiple BDSM clubs for that, but that he and Jonas agreed they were both consenting adults and supported their relationship.
I..... NO????? WHAT THE FUCK???? Consenting adults is all well and good but PARENTS ALWAYS HOLD AN INHERENT POWER AND AUTHORITY OVER THEIR CHILDREN????? WHAT THE HELL, SUCH A RELATIONSHIP IS NOT OK, ESPECIALLY NOT A D/s ONE??? LIKE, NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT????
So not only was that... THAT, it was so random and unfitting and didn't apply to Cornell's and Rhys's situation at all. It further also raises the suspicion that Jonas and Rhys might have scened together and I just... No. Nope. Not gonna go there. That's it for me. It's over. Bye.
I was bored and uncomfortable before, but that tipped the scale for me.
Firm Hand failed to engage me and was continuously creepy in it's portrayal of consent and kink and made me extremely uncomfortable.
I received an ARC & reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Oh dear, this made me so uncomfortable.
Content warnings include: car accident leading to death and injury that leads to disability, BDSM and kink (D/s, sensory play, supposedly reverse daddy kink but the part that I read had none of that), unconsensual D/s, unconsensual aided masturbation, mentions of incestuous D/s relationship between father and son condoned by the main characters.
This started out a bit awkward. There is no explanation as to what Cornell and Rhys's relationship is like other than Rhys being Cornell's best friend's son and Cornell being Rhys's godfather. I had no idea if they were friendly, only talked during awkward christmas phonecalls, or if Cornell was more friend or uncle or stranger to Rhys.
This missing background made it all a bit weird and hard to judge, but ultimately it didn't matter because the discomfort makes it irrelevant.
The writing was okay for the most part, but I wasn't really engaged. I didn't find myself wanting to read on, but it would have been okay if not for it making me so uncomfortable.
(After this it gets a bit spoiler-y.)
After the death of Jonas, Rhys's dad and Cornell's best friend, a severely injured Cornell stays with trained physical therapist Rhys to recuperate. Cornell is a sub and occasionally scened with Jonas, who is also a sub. Rhys is a Dom and knows about Cornell, but Cornell doesn't know about Rhys. Rhys has also had the hots for Cornell for a while now (this isn't explicitly stated but I got the impression?) and he..... wants to use this opportunity to both get closer to Cornell and "prove to him he's all grown up and not a kid anymore."
Which already raises the first few flags. Rhys is 23 and Cornell is 45, which is a considerable age gap. Even with the background of Cornell being Rhys's godfather and essentially watching him grow up could be overcome, but Rhys feeling the need to "prove" himself to be mature is decidedly NOT a good start to that.
Furthermore, Rhys's train of thought from "Cornell is grieving my dad and freshly disabled after the accident" to "I can invite him to stay with me and care for him to get closer to him so we can scene together" is just plain creepy.
But it gets even worse. Rhys, who is very much aware of Cornell being a sub, uses that knowledge and his "Dom ways" on an unknowing Cornell from the very beginning, without Cornell's consent.
This behaviour is called out by more than one person and it is handled as an issue, yet Rhys doesn't seem to realize what he did was wrong at all and objects when people tell him he is essentially manipulating Cornell, that he is on the slippery slope to abusing him, all because "I would never hurt him, I'm doing this to help him!"
And even when people tell Rhys to stop, he doesn't really stop and it's kind of brushed off and ultimately has barely any consequences.
Consent and communication keeps to be an issue in this book in other context's too. In one scene Rhys aids a sleeping Cornell in having an orgasm, and even through indirect touching that is creepy as fuck, and, once again, he didn't have Cornell's consent.
But this stuff isn't just coming from Rhys's direction.
Cornell, too, behaves uncomfortably, acting like Rhys betrayed him by not telling him earlier that he's a Dom. Should Rhys have told him? Yes, he should have as soon as he deliberately leaned on Cornell's instincts as a sub. But before that? No??? Why would he tell his godfather about his sexual perferences???? Rhys had every right not to tell Cornell, and yet Cornell is upset about not knowing way earlier before the accident. Which is weird in itself because he is mortified about Rhys knowing he's a sub, and then continuous being uncomfortable with talking about Jonas's and his own sex life with Rhys.
Consent issues aside, when I got to the first scene where they did scene with explicit consent.... even that felt off to me. Yes, consent is there, and yes, they use safewords, but boundaries? Nope, no communication at all, and minutes before that scene they were still talking about how Rhys refuses to acknowledge he was manipulating Cornell and Cornell was mad at him. Not the best setup for a scene????
What finally tipped this over the edge was when Cornell thinks about what other people would think about Rhys domming him, specifically what Jonas would think. In a completely random and unfitting example he thinks back to a couple he knows, an older Dom and younger sub who were completely in synch which each other.... who turned out to be father and son. He then goes on about how they were kicked out of multiple BDSM clubs for that, but that he and Jonas agreed they were both consenting adults and supported their relationship.
I..... NO????? WHAT THE FUCK???? Consenting adults is all well and good but PARENTS ALWAYS HOLD AN INHERENT POWER AND AUTHORITY OVER THEIR CHILDREN????? WHAT THE HELL, SUCH A RELATIONSHIP IS NOT OK, ESPECIALLY NOT A D/s ONE??? LIKE, NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT????
So not only was that... THAT, it was so random and unfitting and didn't apply to Cornell's and Rhys's situation at all. It further also raises the suspicion that Jonas and Rhys might have scened together and I just... No. Nope. Not gonna go there. That's it for me. It's over. Bye.
I was bored and uncomfortable before, but that tipped the scale for me.
Firm Hand failed to engage me and was continuously creepy in it's portrayal of consent and kink and made me extremely uncomfortable.
I received an ARC & reviewed honestly and voluntarily.