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Title: Slade
Author: Victoria Ashley
Publication Info: Amazon Digital Services May 2014
ISBN: B00KPIPQJ2
Genre: Contemporary Romance
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’VE GOT IT.
Maybe this is Victoria’s ex-boyfriend, and she’s publicly showing everyone what a giant tool he is.
astrakhan>… And the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln!
I was having a moment at work, wanting to just pull up something, anything that wasn’t work. I considered this site, and decided I could wait until I got home. Yep, this review would have gotten me so busted. But it did provide a wonderful transition … well to something, but not something with fuck 517 times.
I’ve heard a lot about this book.
None of it good.
Oh my God. I can’t stop laughing! Unicorn peen? Fucking cats? LOL
Thank you for taking one for the team, Elyse. I’ll send buckets of wine and bleach for your speedy recovery (wine to drink, obviously, the bleach for your eyes and brain, to try and get rid of the horrible images Slade left you with!)
Enjoy,
TB
Fucking. Best. Fucking. Review. Fucking. Ever.
OMG, I laughed so hard! I loved your review! I haven’t read the book and I don’t even plan on doing it. You just made my night! Thank you
This may be the best thing I’ve read in the last month. Seriously. This review is more entertaining than most of the books on my Kindle. I’m currently crying from laughing so hard!
For the record, this book is on the New York Times list for the second week in a row right now.
When you said that Slade and Cale lived together, I said, “Aww, and Hemy had to live all by hemyself.” And things went downhill from there. Thanks for the review—and gifs.
OMG, thank you so much for this. I will admit there that I did actually read this, and didn’t completely hate it. Do not ask me why, because I cannot tell you. But, oh, my goodness, I laughed so hard while reading this review that I am still wiping away tears.
@Courtney:
On the NYT for the 2nd week in a row. Wow!
(Now I find myself asking all manner of semi-rhetorical inappropriate questions. Like, would Slade call it the New Fucking York Times, or the New York Fucking Times, or the New Fucking York Fucking Times….)
My theory is people will buy anything for 99 cents
I laughed so hard. Thank you. You are a true Goddess.
Can someone please write a novel(la) with twin male strippers named Tater and Tot? Pretty please with a cherry on top? And no abuse of semicolons, please.
This review made me nearly choke on my slice of pizza. OMG.
Red pencil sentence diagrams, please, thank you.
@LisaDianne (#12)
Babylon 5. I can’t remember the episode, but it involves Mollari playing poker. I assume it’s on Youtube somewhere. Alien prehensile dick, but it happened.
(Warning: really bad comedy.)
Funniest. Review. Ever. I was crying by the time I got to the end I was laughing so hard. Thank you for the giggle. Favorite line:
Love it! Well, the review. Not this piece of nonsense called Slade. Also, I hope the Rock got a commission since they used his tattoo on the cover. Also also, “magic unicorn sparkle penis” is my new favorite thing.
I made the mistake of reading this while eating an ice cream sundae with sprinkles. You can all guess how that turned out.
As far as high reviews elsewhere….maybe thats why we’re Smart Bitches and folks over there are Amazons.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking that metaphorical glitter-dusted peen for all of us.
I literally laughed so hard at the “fucking cats” paragraph (and gif) that my own cat became alarmed and jumped off my lap. Sure, I was quaking and giggling, but I BET HE KNEW.
I feel like you’re holding back. Tell us how you really feel about the book. LOL
The cover is so pretty. I have a serious case of cover envy.
1) The dog side-eyeing the toaster literally made me laugh out loud.
2) The fact that books like this are bestsellers has really clarified for me that when there is an underserved audience that has been yearning for something in a particular space, there is a huge appetite for things that really dwell in that space, even if the things are not (to my taste) particularly good.
I laughed so hard I had to get out the tissues. And I have a chest infection—wheezy, teary, snotty mess. THANK YOU.
Also, upvoting the red pencil sentence diagrams! Pretty please?
Oh my lord that was hilarious!!
Remind me never to let you review one of my books : )
<3
The capitalization of common nouns has reached epidemic levels at this point. It drives me crazy. I have a near-constant facial tic going when I read fanfic.
In all seriousness, WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING IN ENGLISH CLASSES THESE DAYS?
Oh dear lord. I missed it when this post went up originally—this is what I get for being on painkillers recovering from dental surgery!
And now I’m on painkillers AND antibiotics. But y’know what? I’m still not stoned enough for this book. I’m pretty sure there’s not enough Vicodin in the world to make this book read well.
I read this book, and I LOVED it. In fact, it is top on my list of 2014 Must-Reads, as of today. I think this review is horrible, mean-spirited, and rude. Maybe that’s the point of your reviews and your blog. If you don’t like the book, fine. You can say you don’t like the book and not drag on for 1,466 characters, attempting to insult the author with every sentence. If this is how you “support” authors and gain readers, I will never return to your site again. Notice how I didn’t blather on for 1,466 characters about how horrible this review is or how much your word choice sucked.
Putting a video of a little girl in a review after you degrade the main character for being promiscuous and talking about his dick over and over is really disgusting. That little girl has no place in this review.
“I don’t like the book” is not a review. A review is a piece of writing (or speaking) in which one explains not only whether or not they liked the book, but why they did or didn’t like. It. After reading Elyse’s review, not only did I have a good laugh, but I knew exactly what about the book she disliked and why. In fact, some people replied that they could tell from this review that they WOULD like the book, because the review was so specific.
I’m genuinely curious as to why you liked the book, but you chose not to share that information. Instead, you chose to slam a reviewer for doing her job. Her review is helpful – your comment is not. Pity.
Nothing was said here about Victoria Ashley as a person. Everything Elyse said was about the book and what she found to be objectionable about the plot, characters, and writing. That’s what a review IS. And if we think the book is bad, we are going to say so- yes, even at great length (I wrote a 9,000 word review once on a book I hated with the passion of a thousand suns. I needed to explain why it was so bad and rapey and why this book needed to not exist.)
And yes, this IS how we support the community. F reviews sell more books than A reviews. Readers want to know more than just “I liked/hated this book.” Yeah, there might be some people who will know if I like a book or if Carrie liked a book, then they’ll like a book (or hate it). But they know that because were are so specific and verbose about our likes and dislikes and catnip and everything else. That’s how this works.
Personally I liked Slade. I read an ARC copy of and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Slade is wonderfully wicked. He’s a dirty mouthed self proclaimed sex addict. Hot stripper who works in the Walk of Shame bar. But all that changes when he meets Aspen a woman he should avoid at all costs but can’t help feel drawn to. Slade and Aspen practically combust when together, but secrets lie between them that if released can change everything.
This book is so brilliant and filled with hidden depths. I adored it and can’t wait to read the next two books in the Walk of Shame series. Each book can be read as a standalone as they are about different characters from the Walk of Shame bar. But Slade is a mouthwatering divinely exciting and tantalising read.
Personally I liked Slade. I read an ARC copy of it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. ~ sadly it’s easy to miss out words so this is my top sentence again.
@Ashley I am sorry if you found my review to be rude. I set out to write a thorough, honest review that cites specific examples to support my feeling about a book. That is the purpose of a review, to share my opinion and engage other readers.
My criticisms were limited entirely to the text and not to Victoria Ashley in any way. She was only referred to once to establish that she was the author and was not personally attacked.
Also the GIF of the little girl was used because her facial expression mirrored my own, just like the cat’s did. It is a GIF, not an actual child. The GIF is not being exploited nor is it perverse.
@April I am genuinely glad you liked the book. I appreciate that some readers would find Slade sexy and appealing—he is definitely a “bad boy” character. I never set out to dislike a book (I wish I loved everything I read) and I like seeing the perspectives of other readers in the comments. Sometimes what doesn’t work for me is another reader’s catnip, and that is very cool.
@Elyse I totally agree, everyone has different opinions on books.
I even have different opinions on a book I’ve previously read, and then re-read, depending on my mood.
After all it’s our own personal opinions and tastes that make the need for wide ranges of books to be wrote. Thankfully because I thoroughly enjoy reading all kinds of different types of books.
But yes sadly there are books that no matter how much you want too, it doesn’t float your boat. I’ve previously found loads to my poor hearts great sadness. And for you this was obviously one of yours.
Ah well that be the way of things. I hope you enjoy your next book more, have a fabulous day 😀
I hated a book that everyone else seemed to love (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/paradoxical-storytelling-for-children.html) and got a lot of online abuse. (And I went easy on it! I actually loathed it more and for more reasons than I had room to say!) But like Elyse, I did not attack the author, and like Elyse, I think I gave enough detail that those who like this sort of thing will recognize that this is the sort of thing they like. That’s the job of a critic. Elyse wrote a review that was super-entertaining, whether or not you want to read the book itself, and Elyse did the work of spelling out why it didn’t work for her. That’s all we can ask from criticism. Other folks are of course free to think she’s a moron for not getting why this book is the greatest thing since spotted dick—that’s their prerogative, just as eye-rolling is hers. Tastes differ. If Elyse hated the book because she misread major plot points, didn’t understand that it was parody or satire, or didn’t have a background in the genre and understand its conventions, there might be grounds for objection. But otherwise, nope nope nope.
If anyone’s looking for another book with a single word starting with S title where the main character has a magic penis, I really liked Stud (The Cat Star Chronicles) by
Cheryl Brooks. Not only does the cover have a similar nude male torso, but the physical copy is actually shiny. I 100% picked it up at the library due to the word STUD shining at me from the shelves, and was pleasantly surprised by the contents.
There’s a lot of magical alien pheremones, but I found the overall plot to actually be very sweet (oh, and there is a plot, which, you know, can be nice to have in a book).