A Good Student by Elliot Mabeuse

A Good Student

Elliot Mabeuse

Contemporary Romance/Erotica (BDSM)

Published in 2008

H/h - Conner Devlin/Emma Fiore

Setting: Present time.

Read in Apr, 2012.

My rating:

                                                     [spoiler alert]

This review has some adult quotations so if you’re offended easily, don’t proceed please.

I had a lot of high hopes for this book, mostly because the theme intrigued me, also this got some really positive reviews altogether. Then again, I’ve been a student of Literature myself and the theme tickled some of my secret fantasies. lol Even though a big age difference generally turns me off, I still gave it a go. But I ended up being bored by the time I was about 70% into the book. It honestly felt like dragging on, without much happening.

The book has the first person POV so we get to see everything from Conner’s head, like he’s narrating this to us. Conner is like another typical EM f*cked up heroes; all hotness and creepiness blend in. But that’s only my POV and I find the blend... well, quite pleasant TBH. He is, I presumed, somewhere in his late 40s to early 50s, as he keeps saying he’s twice Emma’s age. What bothered me that I never really know how he looks like. I have some idea of his age and a good idea of how his d*ck looks like but the man himself? Nada. He’s been married twice for short period and his other kinky relationships didn’t go very well, mostly because, according to him, he didn’t find the right kind of woman. He has been living alone, after his last relationship moved out. The converted loft he lives in has its own BDSM ‘dungeon’, all done by his own hand. But, outwardly, no one could guess his sexual proclivities or in his words ‘the beast’ in him. I guess he looked like just another average guy, with not so average sexual hunger. I did like some of Conner’s comments that bordered on self-derision and sarcastic tones about his own life and writing career. He tells us plainly that he writes porn *coughcough, Dr. Mabeuse?* with a penname and he knows he’s bad but trying to produce this ultimate example of his writing talent for sometimes now but things aren’t going well. His life is full of frustrations, both sexual and otherwise. Conner very openly tells us that he is irresponsible and self-centered and all of his other vices. We don’t really get to know much about his outer life, unless it revolves around Emma, how they met and their relationship.

Emma rolls in as a student in Conner’s poetry class and catches his eyes with her looks and bearing. But he knew unless she drops some sign, he can’t pursue anything with her. Conner struck up this easy relationship with Emma, chaste at first if I might mention. They would go out and have coffee or attend some poet gatherings etc. since Conner is a self-proclaimed poet and Emma is interested in literature. One day, he blurts out about his porn stories, kind of testing the water. Emma, of course, reads his books and in the next class, gives him ‘signals’. Conner doesn’t believe it at first, but then, he’s just f*cking exited about it all. But Conner knows, to make this whole experience something totally different that another teacher-student affair, he needs to control himself and teach Emma of his ways because something convinced him that Emma might be the person he’s been looking for.

So off it starts, from smaller dosages to deeper, kinkier stuff. I was kinda thrilled in the first 50/60 pages, the whole buildup of this forbidden relationship felt great. But soon, things started to bug me. Many things. One was the fact that Emma had a boyfriend with who she was practically engaged. I don’t like cheating, by H/h on any level so this was the first drawback. It didn’t feel like she really felt guilty about the cheating part. Then I learned that she has been sort of a party girl to begin with, with many one night stands on her book. Still, I thought I could see that she needed someone special to scratch her kinky itches because none of her past lovers satisfied her to that level. Not even her current boyfriend. This guy is part Lebanese and has a big family, with extended relatives. I come from a somewhat big family so I know sometimes privacy is a thing you need to make a point about, yet I love to be a part of it. What I didn’t like was her POV on big families and somehow, her tries on blaming her cheating/affair on her bf, in the sense that she wasn’t really sure about the whole relationship. That she feels suffocated as she thinks his family is too forward about their relationship, as in ‘making their own plans’ and his father talking to hers. Then I learn that, at first big family made an appeal to her, along with the fact that her bf actually wanted to marry her. But somewhere in the way, it all lost appeal. Not even good sex can hold her to him.

Me? Just load of crap! Conner made no promises of any kind to her, other than sex; not even when the story ended.

Then I was bugged again and again with Conner’s insistent ramblings on his relationship with Emma. I felt like I’m going insane with him! I mean, at first, I liked it. His emotion, what little left of it outside sex, was making appearances and he himself was disturbed by it. He wanted a no strings attached sexual relationship but somewhere along the way, it changed. Sometimes those ramblings would extend pages after pages and I would forget the point of it all or where the hell the book was before this recent rambling started. I did like his dirty talk, until it got ‘too intense’ for my liking, as it did with the other BDSM activities. I generally tend to lose interest when there is heavy BDSM actions in a book, but unless I read one, I can’t measure how much it might press onto my comfort level. To some level this book certainly did.

It was good to see that Conner decides to take Emma to his home and continue the affair there. Beforehand, some of their encounters took place all over the collage campus; from the auditorium where he taught the class to a hired van where they play out their fantasy of being kidnapped and the kidnapper. From Conner’s loft and the usage of his ‘dungeon’, it goes quite deep. I was pretty freaked out by one scene, where Conner makes Emma take in a heavy chain inside her. Eek! Talk about insanity!! Along the way, the mention of her bf would bug Conner to no end but he was still trying to convince himself that it was just sex. When things started to change, Conner was telling Emma that he loves her. She said it back too, but most of the times it was said between their moments of passion and so, when it was over, no one knew the fact. From Conner’s ramblings, we get to learn that he really is falling in love. Even though Conner was in love with Emma, she was pretty confused about the whole up until the end. I don’t know if that was love or whatever but she liked what Conner did to her, only she didn’t want it to be the part of her ‘normal lifestyle’. I don’t really know what she wanted from the whole relationship, other than hot sex.

As in other EM books, the plot was pretty thin. I wish there were something more to hook my interest, other than pages long sex scenes. I like how his sex scenes develop (until it goes too ‘deep’ for me as I’ve mentioned before) and I do love the intensity his heroes usually show. What I don’t like is them drumming in the ideas and theories of sex and relationship into their female counterparts like they are the ones who know it the best. Like the female doesn’t know anything and can’t use their brains. Like this freakin’ world is nothing without BDSM sex!!

Well, I don’t agree. Good for you that you’re enjoying what you’re doing but don’t bring in the rest of the world in it!

Already mentioned I was pretty bored by the time it ended but the museum sex (yah there was one, *winkwink*) was pretty good. Emma does break up with her boyfriend finally, where all those ‘issues with a big family’ came up as she keeps complaining to Conner about it.

About EM’s writing: some prose I definitely liked, with the intensity and their extreme emotions such as (ahem... excuse the french in them and proceed with caution):

"Because you want to feel me? Feel me inside you, all over you, f*cking you, making you my whore, my f*cking whore, my sweet, filthy, f*cking whore? That's what you want? To be mine, my slave, my b*tch, my lover? My c*mslut, my dirty f*ckdoll, my sub, my goddamn f*cking cunt? To be everything to me? Is that it? Is that what you want? You want my filthy f*cking love? My heart and soul?"

I actually laughed (NOT with mockery) and shook my head many times with words and expressions like this. But I know from EM’s other books to expect such stuff so I’m not at really bothered. But too many times of ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ can sometimes grate on my nerves.

Or something like this:

On that day from the basement of the museum, a burst of energy went out over the city, filling the skies and the clouds and the streets and the entire city with a rare and powerful beauty the likes of which the world hadn't seen in eons, a brilliant erotic energy picked up from what an oversexed orgasmic girl and her perverted poet lover did in the basement of the museum, the sheer savage power of our raw and joyous, marvelous human loving, filthy holy f*cking.

I don’t quite know why this prose struck me but it did. Maybe it had something to do with the museum scene.

Then, some did make me laugh because I found some comparisons pretty ridiculous. One tamer example would be: comparing Emma’s pointed nipples to minarets. That was weird.

Anyway, overall as an erotica, it was really good. Sex was hot, intense and if the troubles I had while reading it don’t generally bug you, you’ll find it a fulfilling one I guess. 3.75 stars. I’m not gonna stop reading Dr. Mabeuse’s books, is all I can say. Maybe he’ll get to me totally, someday... lol

BTW: I do draw lines at public fondling. That was not well-done. *exasperated sigh*