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A review by iam
Aftercare by Tanya Chris
4.0
This was a great read that had a few minor flaws.
Content warnings include:
I enjoyed Aftercare a lot. It dealt with quite a few heavy topics: Garrett, a former superstar attorney, is still dealing with the death of his husband who died three years prior of cancer, while Aayan, who is a gay, Muslim, Turkish-Indian immigrant, struggles aligning his sexuality and sexual preferrences with his religion. The main plot resvolves around Aayan's brother Syed, whose spouse Jamie was brutally murdered in a hate crime, but racist police and prejudiced foresics lead to Syed being wrongly accused of murdering Jamie when the autopsy reveals evidence of the couple's BDSM lifestyle.
And that's not all - there's a horribly backstory around a photograph Garrett's late husband, an artist took only for Garrett's eyes (the blurb says "leaked photograph" but no, not really, what happened made me so mad like holy sh*t), all the prejudice against people participating in BDSM, sprinkled with racism, homophobia and islamophobia, and more.
Despite all that, it's not a sad or heavy book in itself.
Aside from the case against Syed, the book focusses on the romance between Garrett and Aayan, specifically the development of their sexual preferrences: Garett, who's a submissive masochist and surprised when his libido sparks against for the first time since the death of his husband, and Aayan, who's okay with being dominant but afraid of his sadistic urges, both because of his religion and because of past experiences.
The minor flaws I mentioned above are mostly about the pace and ease of the plot. I didn't mind that conflict was resolved relatively easily, but at times I felt like the motivation and reasoning of the characters was very weak.
A strong point was definitely the side characters. Aside from Syed there's Garrett's colleagues and Aayan's ex-wife, and even Jamie and Russell, Garrett's dead husband, were both interesting and three-dimensional.
Despite that, I couldn't entirely relate to the protagonists. I liked them well enough and I felt for them, but any depth beyond that was missing.
Overall just a really great read that touches on a lot of topics but doesn't delve too deeply into any of them, keeping the book rather light and easy to read.
Content warnings include:
Spoiler
murder of spouse, unresolved hate crime against a gay man, islamophobia, racism, extreme prejudice against people participating in BDSM, accusations of domestic abuse, sex on-page, BDSM (D/s, whipping with belt and crop), mostly unchallenged internalized toxic masculinity, conflict of sexuality and kink with religion (dominant gay sadist who is muslim); mentions of homophobia, past death of spouse through cancerI enjoyed Aftercare a lot. It dealt with quite a few heavy topics: Garrett, a former superstar attorney, is still dealing with the death of his husband who died three years prior of cancer, while Aayan, who is a gay, Muslim, Turkish-Indian immigrant, struggles aligning his sexuality and sexual preferrences with his religion. The main plot resvolves around Aayan's brother Syed, whose spouse Jamie was brutally murdered in a hate crime, but racist police and prejudiced foresics lead to Syed being wrongly accused of murdering Jamie when the autopsy reveals evidence of the couple's BDSM lifestyle.
And that's not all - there's a horribly backstory around a photograph Garrett's late husband, an artist took only for Garrett's eyes (the blurb says "leaked photograph" but no, not really, what happened made me so mad like holy sh*t), all the prejudice against people participating in BDSM, sprinkled with racism, homophobia and islamophobia, and more.
Despite all that, it's not a sad or heavy book in itself.
Aside from the case against Syed, the book focusses on the romance between Garrett and Aayan, specifically the development of their sexual preferrences: Garett, who's a submissive masochist and surprised when his libido sparks against for the first time since the death of his husband, and Aayan, who's okay with being dominant but afraid of his sadistic urges, both because of his religion and because of past experiences.
The minor flaws I mentioned above are mostly about the pace and ease of the plot. I didn't mind that conflict was resolved relatively easily, but at times I felt like the motivation and reasoning of the characters was very weak.
A strong point was definitely the side characters. Aside from Syed there's Garrett's colleagues and Aayan's ex-wife, and even Jamie and Russell, Garrett's dead husband, were both interesting and three-dimensional.
Despite that, I couldn't entirely relate to the protagonists. I liked them well enough and I felt for them, but any depth beyond that was missing.
Overall just a really great read that touches on a lot of topics but doesn't delve too deeply into any of them, keeping the book rather light and easy to read.