Life on My Knees
Louis Friend
self published [link to buy]
ISBN-10: 0557207096
ISBN-13: 978-0557207091

Rating: 3 out of 5 paddles

Life on My Knees is a collection of short erotic tales that explore different fantasies and D/s dynamics. The book begins with A Thousand Kisses, an intoxicating tale of a young men stumbling into his first gay and submissive relationship. The awe of this new found world is beautifully described by the author and makes a promising start to the book. Stories with themes of rape play and forced bisexuality reoccur in various tales along with cross dressing and gender blending. There is a selection of different kinks to capture the reader’s imagination and taste.

The writing style is descriptive in nature with a strong sense of the outside perception of the characters erotic adventures. Within the later stories the plot is often very formulaic and becomes less interesting. The descriptions and plots often became repetitive in nature. Within some of the stories I felt as though the sexual and erotic elements were almost forgotten. I couldn’t help but feel detached from the characters. The power play scenes were not described in a sexual or erotic enough manner to keep my interest. The writing style did however lend itself to some of the stories within the book more then others. The detached writing style was highly effective in the story titled Dinner and a Show.

Overall this collection of stories was an enjoyable light read with various kinky themes. I believe this is a good book for someone who is just exploring their interest in gender bending or is after some soft core D/s reading.

Reviewed by Catherine

Freedom is Slavery
Louis Friend
[link to buy]
ISBN-10: 0557207096
ISBN-13: 978-0557207091

Rating: 1 out of 5 paddles

The reading and evaluation of this book went through several stages. When reading the introduction anticipating a novel I discovered in fact it was a series of short stories as the author refers to them or fantasies as he discusses. I agreed with him as I read the Introduction that fantasies do not necessarily have to come true but are not bad to indulge.

I read the first story, Sybarta and then the second, Big Fun in a Small Space and they were indeed enjoyable, but left me wanting and wondering. What happened to the rest of the story, or if I kept reading there would be at some point and intersection where they would come together? This seemed a logical assumption as each story were all told from the same first person point of view. Plus as I read the narrator of the story was always male. But slowly the realization set in that there was no more to any of the stories, nor do they come together to form a whole. Each story is separate and distinct, except for the teacher sequence in the middle of the book, but even then only the characters are the same.

What happened though as I read the first few stories was to understand that they don’t really stand as what I normally consider stories.There are always 2 and sometimes 3 characters, but the primary character in each episode is simply referred to as “I”, with no descriptors of the person and minimal reference to who he is, other than male. The secondary character is usually given a short physical description and where the story is taking place is mentioned.