figure skater

“I feel like a better title for this book would be “Perfect Season” because that is what it was all about to me. It’s what we want: perfection. It’s what we want to see in others: perfection. It’s where we want our lives to be – the place we want to live. It’s just not always the most realistic viewpoint to carry.

I’ll spare you the blurb, which actually describes this gem perfectly.

From the characters to the prose to the level of angst and love this one delivers a Gold Medal winning performance. I loved both characters – though sometimes I didn’t like them very much. It felt absolutely real. We all strive for the “Perfect Season” in our lives and so very rarely do we get it – until we look back on what we’ve done, seen, loved, and worked towards and realized that it really was all for a reason. Sometimes we get kicked down so hard that we think we’re so far underground we won’t see the light of day, well, ever – and yet we keep going. The drive, the motivation, to do something like Matty is doing seems foreign to many – but people who have it, who give like that, who commit like that, it’s overwhelming, painful, endorphin producing, rewarding, and downright costly. All at the same time.

What great fortune to also find a book that contains BDSM but is not about it. No fancy schmancy clubs here with paraded twinks naked with collars. No discussion or negotiation, no BDSM101 lecture, nada. No “Boy” this and “Sir” that protocol. Just honest need, want, and desire that gets expressed with a more D/s theme running through. I will definitely say that this one has two kinks that are neither common nor comfortable for a great amount of people: breath play and medical (enema). Yet I would challenge anyone to read this and not to understand what was going on, how these fit in to the story, and come away with the thought that it was those things that identified the book. Because they just so don’t. The scenes’s are memorable for how they express the characters relationship and growth and understanding. They are expressions – of something far greater and far more importance. Divine.

A top 5 pick of the year for me. I very rarely stay up until 4am to finish a book. I did here and didn’t regret it one bit and didn’t even wake up tired. I woke up with this feeling that I’d just left my Grandma’s house on Christmas day after all the food, festivities, and love and I so want to go back to that place again. For that moment, in that time, at that place – it was, for me, The Perfect Season.”

Amazon.com: AlexJouJou’s review of Training Season.