Book Review

Review: Slade by Victoria Ashley

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Title: Slade
Author: Victoria Ashley
Publication Info: Amazon Digital Services May 2014
ISBN: B00KPIPQJ2
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Book Slade I wasn’t going to finish Slade by Victoria Ashley because I hated it, and the hero is cringe-worthy and so is the writing, but the other Smart Bitches were all like “Take one for the team, Elyse!” And I did. And now I’m sorry.

Slade is a love story about a male stripper and the girl he’d really like to fuck but who can’t stand him. Slade dances at a club called Walk of Shame with two other male strippers, Cale and Hemy. Seriously, Cale and Hemy. I was really hoping there would also be twin male strippers named Tater and Tot, but we can’t always get what we want. Anyway, Slade and Cale also live together.

If you read the summary of this book, you’ll see that Slade is a self-described “fucking sex addict.” I don’t know what the difference between a fucking sex addict and a regular sex addict is, but there you go. For the record, he’s not really an addict; he’s just promiscuous. He really enjoys putting his dick in things. And said dick takes center stage in this book. He refers to it constantly.

The book opens with Slade hooking up with a random woman:

The door opens right as I’m reaching for my pack of cigarettes and switching the light on. My dick is still standing at full alert, but I could care less. This shit head [Cale] interrupted my night. If he doesn’t like seeing my dick hard, then he should have known better than to come up to my room in the middle of the night.

Well, okay. Then when he tells Cale to get out and he doesn’t:

“Your three seconds were up.” I thrust my hips, gripping her hair in both my hands. “Mmm…fuck.” Damn that feels good. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Like I said, he really likes sticking his dick in things, even if his roommate is in the room. Good for him.

Slade is of the belief that every single woman on earth wants his cock. He likes to ask women, “You were craving this cock, weren’t you?” And women seem to go for this. I’m not sure why. It’s like Slade’s peen is a unicorn horn poking out of his pubes, dusted with glitter and the tears of Justin Bieber. Women just go after him, like PUT IT IN ME NOW ANY ORIFICE WILL DO, which I found a little unsettling.

Also it’s always hard. Slade thinks he’s a stud, but I’m concerned he has a legitimate medical condition, like priapism, and at some point will just drop dead in his shiny thong.

So anyway, one night while he’s dancing, Slade sees Aspen Raines (seriously, that’s her name) and his peen gets EVEN HARDER if such a thing is possible. HE MUST HAVE HER. HIS PEEN TELLS HIM TO:

Letting my dick do the talking, I walk up to the dance floor, grab the drink out of her hand and set it on the table beside me.

What does his dick “talking” have to do with walking over to the dance floor and taking her drink? Does his dick do the walking? Does it grab the drink from her? Is it prehensile?

Aspen, who, it turns out, is a friend of Cale’s and is staying with them, wants nothing to do with Slade or his magic unicorn sparkle penis. Even after this stellar pick-up line:

“You know it’s against the rules, but I would let you touch it if you wanted to.”

I guess it’s okay to say shit like that in a strip club as opposed to, say, the bus stop, but still…

Slade is portrayed as being this dirty talking, hot smexing bad-boy. And he does talk dirty, so if that’s your thing, there you go. He also swears constantly which doesn’t bother me considering I have the mouth of a longshoreman, but the words “fuck” or “fucking” appear 517 times in this book. I was absolutely overwhelmed by them. It was almost like a tic Slade had.

So the basic plot is Slade wants to fuck Aspen, she doesn’t want to, but then the spell of the magic unicorn sparkle peen hits, and he goes down on her on his motorcycle in the rain (not while in motion, I should mention). And the rest of the book is hate-smexing and Slade having feels he doesn’t want to have, and terrible, terrible writing.

Honestly, the writing is so bad. This book is littered with errors;  it desperately needs a red pen. I mean, I get it. I find errors in books all the time. I find them in my own writing constantly. The problem is Slade is just rife with them. It’s best that I just present you with some examples of the text.

It only takes her kissing me hard and pulling my hair before I find myself busting my nut deep inside her still throbbing pussy.

Girl in car seat with WTF EW face

I like that it’s just the one nut, too. Probably Lefty. He’s always jumping the gun.

Shortly after that glorious description of Slade’s orgasm:

I yank the condom off my dick and toss it onto one of my old shirts.

Then they crawl into bed and go to sleep. Remember when romance heroes used to clean up and then tenderly wash the heroine with a warm cloth while she lazed in bed in a post-orgasmic haze? Yeah, I miss that.

Also when Slade finds out Aspen is living with them he thinks:

[…] the last thing I want to do is go and exist in the same house as her just to have her avoid me and act as if she doesn’t want it was much as I do.

 

A ticket machine dispensing cards that say NO NO NO NO NO

First of all, “go and exist?” How about stay? Or live? Or even sleep? Is Aspen’s denial of the magical sparkle unicorn peen an existential problem for Slade? Will he literally wink out of existence if he cannot put the peen in something?

I feel like all pets as well as most appliances should be really nervous in Slade’s house. Like the dog is giving side-eye to the toaster because they know the potential for shit to get weird is high.

Also the last part of that is fairly rapey, in my humble opinion. Personally I’ve never been a fan of “you know you want it.” Ick.

The writing seems to get progressively worse as the book goes on. It felt like whole chapters went more or less unedited. Slade tells Aspen:

“I worked for my father’s Law Firm.”

I mean, come on. If I pay a dollar for a book, I’d like for it to at least know what a proper noun is.

Then, at the very end, things got really weird, or at least Slade did. He realizes that his peen has chosen for him. It has sniffed out his One True Love. That is why he no longer wants to stick it in things other than Aspen:

“Because I love it when you touch me. It makes me feel as if I’m breathing; makes me feel…alive.”

So…was he not breathing earlier? I TOLD YOU HE HAD A MEDICAL CONDITION.

My new working theory is that Slade is a vampire with priapism. His dick has its own thrall. It can never be flaccid because he was cursed by gypsies.

Also, semicolon rage. I’m like that lady in the phone commercial, “That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”

It gets better though:

“I may not be perfect all the fucking time. I’m far from it, but you make me want to be as close to it as I can be. Give me the chance to make you feel good; feel wanted. I want you to be mine. I want to be the one you snuggle with and watch a movie with at night. I want to be the one you stay home with because you don’t like to go out. I don’t like fucking cats, but I’ll love them because you love them.”

I DON’T LIKE FUCKING CATS. WELL I HOPE  NOT.

A cat drawing his head back with wide eyes and a OH HELL NO expression of horror.

See, this is why word order is important. I assume that Slade means he doesn’t fucking like cats, not that he doesn’t like fucking cats. I would imagine the latter would lead to stitches, quite frankly.

Back when I used to tutor in college, I explained the importance of editing to my students by writing down two sentences:

I helped my brother, Jack, off a horse.

I helped my brother jack off a horse.

Same words, totally different meaning, kids.

So if you want a book with a lot of fucks and fucking, as well as dubious punctuation, here you go. I’m going to be in the corner with the cat, recovering.


This book is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo.

Comments are Closed

  1. Kaetrin says:

    Oh, that review is a thing of beauty, a work of art. I’m also terribly glad that I wasn’t drinking anything when I read it. Thank you for taking one for the team Elyse! 😀

  2. Bea says:

    Laughing so hard so early in the morning can’t be good for my Ipad due to multiple beverage spillings but it does a lot of good to Yours Truly. Elyse, I heart you! “Is it prehensile?” I almost dropped quasi-dead from laughing and no shiny thong to flash the paramedics…

  3. Friday says:

    This is why I love a SB review.  I have found my tribe and they speak my dialect.  And everything is telling me to Stay Well Away from this atrocity on the English language.

    I notice that this is a novella – probably a small blessing in and of itself. 

    I should also note that the mental image of a ‘unicorn horn poking out of his pubes, dusted in glitter and the tears of Justin Bieber’ will stay burned into my brain cells forevermore.  Not sure if I should be thanking Elyse for this or not.

  4. Ocotilla says:

    Thanks! I just finished wiping snarfed chai off my laptop screen.

  5. LauraL says:

    Thanks, Elyse, for taking one for the team. What frightens me is, from the cover, it looks like this novella is the first in a series.

    Bad editing/writing means the author ought to consider taking a walk of shame along with that fucking Slade. (I was very careful with the last few words of that sentence.)

  6. TheoLibrarian says:

    What a great way to start off the day! The discussion of this book on twitter delighted me but this is so much better.  Thanks for taking one for the team, Elyse!

  7. Janet says:

    I feel like all pets as well as most appliances should be really nervous in Slade’s house. Like the dog is giving side-eye to the toaster because they know the potential for shit to get weird is high.

    I actually laughed out loud.

  8. Sandy C. says:

    I had to put down my cup of coffee while I read this review, because I began snorting with laughter. Thank you for reading it so the rest of us don’t have to! The editing mistakes alone would have killed any desire to read this novella, but the actual description of the “plot”?  Wow.

  9. astrakhan says:

    Because of the title and the cover, I can only presume that this is the long-awaited biography of…

    Boom! BIG JIM SLADE! Hevenu shalom aleichem…

    (If that makes no sense, watch “The Kentucky Fried Movie”.)

  10. kim says:

    Best review I have ever read 😉

  11. Cate M. says:

    I am cry-laughing to the point of not breathing.

    “I worked for my father’s Law Firm.”

    Maybe the priapism is a family problem, and that’s…some kind of euphemism?

  12. LisaDianne says:

    A prehensile dick……I would pay to see that.

  13. This book sounds terrible but this review is AMAZING, if for no other reason than that cat GIF. Thanks for taking one for the team, Elyse!

  14. Natalie says:

    Thank you for finishing the book, if only so you could reach the “fucking cats” sentence. That makes it all worth it…at least, for us.

  15. anna says:

    I believe you that it’s bad…and yet it has 248 reviews with a 4.6 star rating on Amazon and is #48 in paid kindle.

  16. Jessica G says:

    What does his dick “talking” have to do with walking over to the dance floor and taking her drink? Does his dick do the walking? Does it grab the drink from her? Is it prehensile?

    A prehensile penis….I think I saw an anime about that once.

    This was an awesome way to start the day. Thanks for taking one for the team, Elyse.

     

  17. Hannah says:

    Who are these people who are rating this book so highly? I amused my 2 yo while reading this at breakfast. She had no idea what was so funny but thought it was great to see mama laughing so early in the morning. Also thank you for the restrained use of GIFs. This is how they should be used.

  18. Francesca says:

    You paid a whole dollar for this? I try very hard not to fall into the mindset of “You like something I don’t like, so you must be a moron,” but the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads of this are enough to make me weep. I fear for humanity…

  19. Tamara Hogan says:

    anna said:

    I believe you that it’s bad…and yet it has 248 reviews with a 4.6 star rating on Amazon and is #48 in paid kindle.

    *headdesk*
    *headdesk*
    *headdesk*
    *headdesk*

    Some days, I wonder why I try so damn hard.

  20. Darbi Bradley says:

    Alright, pack it up everyone. Let’s go home.

    We’ve found the best thing on the internet. All hail our new overlord, Elyse.

  21. tradermare says:

    “…dusted with glitter and the tears of Justin Bieber”  Best line—I’m going to be chuckling about that all day

  22. Tamara – I’m with you. So the review made me smirk this morning (not enough coffee yet to laugh – I’m on the west coast) but then 248 and 4.6… no laughing.

    I guess I’ll have to go read a HABO to get my groove back.

  23. CarrieS says:

    I am falsely accused!  I have the email record to prove that I never encouraged you to pursue this terrible endeavor UNTIL you tempted us with red pencil sentence diagrams, diagrams which I notice DO NOT APPEAR.  I am both slandered and betrayed!

  24. Cecilia says:

    I am laughing so hard I had to pick an handkerchief to wipe my tears. The gifs killed me. Thanks for this review!

  25. Lucy Dosch says:

    OMG!  You can’t do this to me.  I’m trying to sneak reviews at work and you’re giving me “magical sparkle unicorn penis.”  I’m gonna get fired for spitting coffee all over my computer and shorting it out. 

    I love the face on the little girl.  I’m making it myself and I didn’t read this horror.  Was this supposed to be sexy?

  26. SB Sarah says:

    Every time I think of the words “I don’t like fucking cats,” I start laughing.

    Maybe I should make some t-shirts….

  27. K.S. Clay says:

    Okay. What gets to me isn’t just that he doesn’t like fucking cats, though that alone is priceless. I doubled over with laughter after, “but I’ll love them because you love them.” Wow. The things some people will do for love.

    Thanks for making my morning just a little bit better.

  28. kkw says:

    Slade doesn’t *like* fucking cats, sure, but he knows because he’s done it before. Probably some night when the toaster was out of reach. Now, of course, he’d do one for love. It changes everything.

    Red pencil diagrams please.

  29. Sue D. says:

    I’m a day late to this game, but this review was incredible. I say we do a book club review of a terrible book next time.

  30. P. J. Dean says:

    You know, when you review these things it just encourages them to keep on writing them.

  31. Rebecca says:

    I got as far as “the dog is giving the toaster side-eye”and barely got the glass back in front of my face to snarf iced coffee back into.  Finished the review laughing so hard I was crying.  As someone about to teach freshman comp to resentful college kids for the first time, I’m with kkw – RED PENCIL DIAGRAMS PLEASE!  And THANK YOU!!!!

  32. Make Kay says:

    Ok, this review made me giggle snort multiple times. Score

  33. Rosa E. says:

    This is why we need were-killer-whale romance. That would be an excuse for the hero to actually have a prehensile dick, and not one induced by bad writing. Oh dear.

    The gypsy curse was what finally got me. I now have Cherry Coke in my sinuses, but God it was worth it. You’re a master, Elyse.

  34. Monique D says:

    I don’t think I had ever laughed so much reading a book review. What is so sad, is I might buy it because it seems so awful, it could be a good way to relax once in a while!

  35. Dread Pirate Rachel says:

    That cat gif. Oh, my god, that cat gif. I’m at work and trying so hard not to laugh right now that my abs hurt from the strain. Well done again, Elyse. Your reviews are glorious.

  36. jimthered says:

    And for those so inclined, Red Tie Products (with the great Grammar Matters t-shirts) actually has a shirt illustrating the two versions of “I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse” http://www.redtieproducts.net/  You gotta be pretty brave to wear it in public, though!  (I have their shirt that has “Let’s eat, Jackson!” and “Let’s eat Jackson!”)

  37. CarrieS says:

    I’m calling it.  “I don’t even like fucking cats” is the new “I’m fucking her ass, saving her life”.

  38. LaineyT says:

    Too many hilarious quotes to choose from.  Elyse you are da bomb!!

  39. Dot Salvagin says:

    Stunning review! This is why I love this website.

  40. JacquiC says:

    “I don’t like fucking cats” is a perfect illustration of a grammatical point.  I should use it to demonstrate the effect of word order and the need for editing (including reading text out loud to oneself) to my kids…

    or on second thought, maybe not!  (or not until they are older..)

    Thanks for the comic relief. Such an awesome review.  I have no desire whatsoever to read the book, as it couldn’t possibly surpass the review!

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