Book Review: CD Reiss' Songs of Submission #1 – Beg

Summary: 

Monica is a struggling singer dreaming to make it big in Los Angeles with her friends and bandmates Darren and Gabby. In order to get by and support her dream, Monica works as a waitress in a bar but she loses that job when she meets her “boss’s boss”, wealthy businessman Jonathan Drazen. She finds herself deeply attracted to him and in her preoccupation, she accidentally spills drinks she was serving on him and got herself fired by her boss, Freddie. Before she leaves, Jonathan summons her, but not after Freddie sexually assaults her. She reports this to Jonathan who said that he planned to give her the severance pay but couldn’t do so now because it would seem like he’s paying her off so she wouldn’t sue. He couldn’t un-fire her, either, because it would look like she kept her job for that same reason so Jonathan referred her to work in another bar his friend owned.  

Monica meets Jonathan again in her new workplace and they share passionate moments but Jonathan likes to keep her hanging and begging. Her attraction to him overwhelms and scares her because she doesn’t want to make the same mistake she did with her ex-boyfriend who made her lose her focus on her passion for music. She tells herself that she won’t make a big deal out of it and keep their relationship purely primal. If anything, she intends to use him to her advantage by using Jonathan’s connections to boost her band’s career. However, one morning, Jonathan receives a phone call from his ex-wife—a woman who broke his heart and whom, apparently, Jonathan still harbors feelings for. Monica felt a pang of jealousy and realizes that she has done the very thing she forbid herself to do—she has started to fall for him. The book ends with her leaving as he answers his ex-wife’s phone call, intending to not complicate matters for them and leave him for good.

♠♠♠ 

I finally had the time to finish reading the first book in the Songs of Submission series, Beg, after someone ripped me away from my Elementary marathon and borrowed my laptop. L No regrets, though, because I’d already started the book and I am loathe to leave any book unfinished.

Like I said from one of my previous posts, the books in the series contain only a few pages so it was an easy read. Beg, for one, only had eight chapters. I believe the proper term for it is novella—longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.

I am not really a big fan of erotic and even romantic novels. I think it is, basically, to women what porn is to men, only that men are more visual and prefer to watch sex while women appreciates more what our imagination can conjure. I find that my interest in films, shows, or books is more on mystery fiction or crime procedural, especially of late. However, I do make exceptions for other genre if they are popular and/or interesting. Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, did consume a good one week of my life because everyone was talking about it. I can't say for sure if it was the first erotic novel to be mainstream but it did expose the genre and the concept of BDSM to public awareness. Since then many authors have followed suit, as did the author of this series if I'm not mistaken.

I rate Beg 3.5 out of 5. For me, it’s just “so-so”, but good enough to merit the additional half point. Then again, like I mentioned, I am not particular to this genre so my expectations may be different from avid erotica readers.

Beg is pretty graphic but even if it’s “vanilla sex” in Fifty Shades of Grey standards, CD Reiss wrote better. I didn’t like FSoG because it seemed as if E.L. James just cramped all of the BDSM style she could think of into the books and focused more on the sex rather than the story, sacrificing the quality of her writing. As a reader, Reiss was able to make me identify (or at least wish to do so) with Monica—strong, passionate, determined to reach her dreams. I was also made to feel her struggle in trying to resist Jonathan’s charms, although not powerful enough to my standards. However, the reason why I didn’t like it much is because it’s so predictable and even—for lack of a better term—cliché. How many times have we ever seen/read/heard of a poor-but-brave-girl-meets-handsome–and-rich-guy-and-she-tries-to-not-fall-in-love-with-him-but-he’s-too-irresistible story line? ALL. THE. FUCKING. TIME. It’s Cinderella and Prince Charming all over again. It’s Fifty Shades of Grey, and Pretty Woman, and Maid in Manhattan, and Indecent Proposal, and more or less 90% of all rom-com/chick flick ever created. Even Filipino dramas have it. (Cue the overly-extended-too-good-to-be-true Be Careful With My Heart.)

 I don’t blame authors, though, if they feel like they need to follow this cliché plot because this is what people want to see or read. I understand that it gives hope to the hopeless romantic and provide them an escape from reality. However, it would be so much better if we could see something more than what we’ve already seen from the others. Beg, sadly, made me want to beg for something new. Well, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and still read the other books. These are just my initial observations anyway judging from the first one I've read and who knows, CD Reiss might surprise me in the succeeding books.