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Straight Men

af Jonathan W. Thurston

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921,976,628 (3)Ingen
"Thurston has created a spellbinding treatise on terror and pain." -PUBLISHER'S WEEKLYWelcome to your new life as my houseboy...When gay college student Sean Wolfe finds out that his verbally abusive father has died, Sean finds comfort in seeking that same kind of objectification elsewhere... through online hookups. He bites off more than he can chew when he goes out into the Tennessee country to username Mason419's home. Like a cross between Gillian Flynn's Dark Places, and Stephen King's Gerald's Game, Sean finds himself drugged and collared to become sex trafficker Mason's unwilling sex slave, with only Mason's German Shepherd, Max for company. The ultimate question is, can Sean find a way out of the electric fence that keeps him there or should he just accept his place as Mason's second pet?… (mere)
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This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Straight Men by Jonathan W. Thurston

Thurston wastes no time in introducing us to a story of brutality, murder, and extreme masochism. In the Prologue a young man pleads for his life but is butchered then buried in a grave in the front yard of the murderer for all to see. His grave marker is labeled simply "#8". This will have significance later.

The major character of the novel is a young man named Sean Wolfe whose verbally abusive father has recently died...only in reality. It seems Mr Wolfe is Sean's constant companion who regularly speaks to him reminding him of just what a shit he is.

Sean is attending college and is a popular guy but only two of his friends are introduced: best friend Janie and gay friend Devlin. Janie, in fact, is the only straight character in the book so I'm not sure where the "Straight Men" title comes from.

Sean advertises on gay hook-up websites as sexually submissive. In about three pages he has gone to the house of a sadistic man who addresses him as "boy" as he opens the front door. What follows is roughhouse sex which results in anal bleeding. Note there was no negotiation in the beginning (a must in an S&M situation). Sean leaves with no clean-up and, presumably, blood running down his leg. He goes back to his apartment, "kicked off his shoes, threw his shirt into the hamper, tossed himself onto the couch" in front of the TV and went to sleep, still no shower, no clean-up.

It is clear in the first few pages that Sean has a death wish (possibly to fulfill the wishes of his father who continues to berate him throughout the book). It is one thing to be sexually submissive and quite another to continually, seemingly in every sexual encounter, expose oneself to HIV or Hep B or C utilizing the primary transmission route for AIDS, anal tearing.

But Sean's father isn't the only one who berates Sean. Sean hates himself after every one of these encounters. After the first encounter in the book he thinks to himself "slut, slut, you deserve to die". Later the author affirms this: "He hated himself, he hated his dad, and he hated that he didn't have the courage to end all of this himself." (p17)

As an aside, it is interesting that Thurston writes "...faggot...that was one word that would have broken Sean". Hmmm! So there is a word that the younger generation is sensitive to. Apparently not "queer", though, which they toss around without a thought as to how an older generation of men could be broken with that word.

Now to get to the meat of the story. A Mason419 responds to Sean's ad and tells him forthrightly he'll show no mercy. Well, that's just the ticket for self-hating Sean. He consults with the supposedly wiser Devlin who says "go for it".

He heads out to the rural Tennessee address of Mason416, pulls into the yard; everything seems ok so far. On his way to the house he passes a "graveyard" (yes he immediately knows what it is) with 8 simple markers numbered #1, #2...#8. Now we readers know what the gruesome prologue was about and that Sean is #9. Sean just shrugs it off though: "What the hell..." he says as #2 through #8 probably did too.

During the next few hours things in Mason416's house turn pretty grim for Sean as he finds himself drugged and collared. The collar is curious since it is sensitive to an invisible electric fence surrounding Mason416's property. Mason has control of the radius which he initially sets at 50 feet. If Sean tries to escape, once he hits that 50 ft mark the collar administers a deadly jolt and he's a goner.

I'll admit, once Thurston gets going with Sean's predicament it is a page-turner. I was engrossed enough to finish the book in three sittings. However, the suspense degenerates toward the end of the book which I will mention later.

There are some plot holes, or maybe not. The invisible electrified fence would be easy to defeat since it had to draw power from that same source as the house; turn off the power to the house and Sean is free. He had ample time to study the house since Mason416 was gone a good deal of the time.

For that matter Sean had free reign of the house and outside out to the invisible fence at 50 ft. He was a fully functional human being except for the tight collar (and always being naked). Therefore he could have easily incapacitated Mason416 just about any time he wanted. Was this another part of his death wish not to even try?

Mason416 regularly brought his sadistic gay friends to abuse and rape Sean. Therefore, several people knew of the murders, even joked about them. It is ridiculous to believe Mason416 could commit murder after murder with impunity. He was not a typical serial killer in that he never tried to cover up any of his misdeeds. In this day and age, and Straight Men is contemporary, records from social media sites habituated by the deceased eight would surely point to Mason416. How about the mailman? He could see the graveyard 6 days a week and could watch the number of burials grow.

Then, taking his freedom-to-kill to the ultimate, Mason16 becomes enraged with one of his sadistic friends, Dustin, shoots him, chops him up into little pieces, throws the parts into the back of his Ranger, and dumps the bloody mess into the nearest stream. "Fish food" he says. That's that! No investigation, no nuthin'. Just another day in the life of Mason416.

Now to my only spoiler: Devlin and Janie find Sean and help him escape. This is the point I mentioned earlier where the book turned from a page-turner to a groaner. The rest of the book is predictable and laughably implausible which then brings up the question, is the first part of the book plausible? I think so.

Back in 2013 in Cleveland three women were finally freed after being held prisoner by an Ariel Castro for 11 years when one of them escaped and called police. Why did it take so long? The answer is probably intimidation. During this long period of time they surely had numerous opportunities to overpower Castro in a three-against-one situation or escape the same way it was done during the 11th year. They didn't though.

To sum up, I can recommend this book as a study in the means of intimidation that can make weak people in an imprisonment situation unable to help themselves even though they can. Could it be the Stockholm Syndrome? I think so. ( )
  dangnad | Jul 1, 2019 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Straight Men 3/5 Stars

I was sent this book for review from the publisher, but all thoughts are my own!

I want to start off by saying, that I really enjoyed the first few chapters of the book. The premise and plot of the book had me really interested when I seen the book on the Library Thing Early Reviewers list. I hit request right away! I've been wanting to branch out more and read more LGBT+ books that aren't YA. This fit the bill perfectly... Until it went a little too far.

This book, while really strongly written (I'll get to that in a moment), went for shock value over the normal suspense build-up in thrillers. So many things were being thrown at you that made me want to throw my e-ready across the room... And don't get me started on that one basement scene halfway through the book... I would have DNF'd the book then if not for the fact that I got this book for review and wanted to give it a full shot since I was given the book for free.

Other than those scenes that felt too explicit and push a bit too far... I found the story interesting. If it wouldn't have been for as detailed as it wast during those moment, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more. It was just those moment, threw me out of the story and made me cringe.

Now onto the thing I loved, the writing! Jonathan W. Thurston's writing was amazing. I thought the way that they wrote and set up the scene was great. I felt like I could envision every room of that farmhouse that was mentioned. And if I were given (or bought) another one of the author's books, I would read it again just because of the writing. In fact, I gave this book an extra star just for the writing.

So, final thoughts. I really think this author might be someone that I enjoy reading in the future. I might go into it with a little bit of a reserve, but I'd be open to giving them another read. If you're a fan of erotic-thrillers that aren't afraid of going there and holding nothing back... then this would be the book for you. ( )
  SebisTheSecond | Aug 13, 2018 |
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Oprindelig udgivelsesdato
Personer/Figurer
Vigtige steder
Vigtige begivenheder
Beslægtede film
Indskrift
Tilegnelse
Første ord
Citater
Sidste ord
Oplysning om flertydighed
Forlagets redaktører
Bagsidecitater
Originalsprog
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

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"Thurston has created a spellbinding treatise on terror and pain." -PUBLISHER'S WEEKLYWelcome to your new life as my houseboy...When gay college student Sean Wolfe finds out that his verbally abusive father has died, Sean finds comfort in seeking that same kind of objectification elsewhere... through online hookups. He bites off more than he can chew when he goes out into the Tennessee country to username Mason419's home. Like a cross between Gillian Flynn's Dark Places, and Stephen King's Gerald's Game, Sean finds himself drugged and collared to become sex trafficker Mason's unwilling sex slave, with only Mason's German Shepherd, Max for company. The ultimate question is, can Sean find a way out of the electric fence that keeps him there or should he just accept his place as Mason's second pet?

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