MichaelJoseph reviewed Toy by Pete Brown
Review of 'Toy' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
First, a major gripe: this has to be the most error-filled ebook I've yet read. I'm getting used to ebooks having more typos than print, but this edition had at least one, if not two or three, errors on every page. What makes it really galling is that the publisher is charging a premium for the ebook edition. On Amazon US, the Kindle edition lists for more than the paperback. If you're going to charge a premium, you might at least proof the damn book!
Okay, rant over. I ended up reading this book in one sitting. It's not that it's that engrossing, but I couldn't sleep and it is well paced. The story is told from the point of view of Steve, a young man who raised hell one too many times and is serving a life sentence when he's suddenly whisked away by a super-secret government agency, to …
First, a major gripe: this has to be the most error-filled ebook I've yet read. I'm getting used to ebooks having more typos than print, but this edition had at least one, if not two or three, errors on every page. What makes it really galling is that the publisher is charging a premium for the ebook edition. On Amazon US, the Kindle edition lists for more than the paperback. If you're going to charge a premium, you might at least proof the damn book!
Okay, rant over. I ended up reading this book in one sitting. It's not that it's that engrossing, but I couldn't sleep and it is well paced. The story is told from the point of view of Steve, a young man who raised hell one too many times and is serving a life sentence when he's suddenly whisked away by a super-secret government agency, to be given as a sex toy to a Mid-Eastern potentate. The bulk of the book deals with the "training" of the theoretically straight Steve.
I had two major problems with the story, that prevented me from giving it a higher rating:
In most captive-slave stories, there's a point where the new slave is "broken" and submits to his new master. That doesn't really happen in this book. At the point where it seems about to happen, there's a plot twist that stretches believability. The twist comes into play at the end, but I think it could have been done much better.
The ending, where Steve is presented to his new master, is another big disappointment. It's one of those hurry-up rush-rush jobs, where what could have been another one or two very interesting chapters is boiled down to a few paragraphs.