The Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan - A review

The Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was going to give this a thorough review, mostly because of my feelings whilst reading this book. However, after looking at the reviews briefly, I feel this has been more than done with the 2.8k+ reviews already submitted. In particular, I want to mention Natasha's review 'Natasha is a book junkie' which I thought was brilliantly done and described almost everything that I wanted to say anyway.
The difference between her 2 star rating and my 5 star is that I did not want to mark the book down because it was a little too over the top for me. I have been interested in this genre for a long time, before the Fifty Shades of Grey fiasco anyway - and was thrilled with Fifty hit the shelves, leading to a sudden saturation in the market. I have read a few other trilogies too, some pretty mediocre, so, when I picked up this one, it did shock me a little.
I too have to wonder how much of a submissive she is compared to an actual masochist and although I know the two go hand in hand, the balance, in my opinion, seems to be tipped a little too much to the latter. I didn't 'feel the love' as I did with the other books I have read and yes, Thomas scared me too, but I am not sure if that is simply because the author didn't dwell on the touch feely side of him because she was so focused on the 'punishments' or if there just wasn't any of that coming from him.
James restored a little of my faith in men. Either Sophie wanted to make him a little less sadistic and more human, or he just was, we will never know, but regardless, it was all a little too violent for my taste.
That however, does not make this a bad book. It is just the other spectrum of the BDSM lifestyle that I am sure people do practice.
I do have to wonder about Sophie's outlook in life, her kink and like Natasha, I actually do feel sorry for her need to be treated this way. There is a very fine line I believe, between keeping a D/s relationship a loving and caring one, to simply a physical one. This book, I felt missed out on the loving/caring side of the D/s dynamic.

But, to each their own I guess. For readers that enjoyed Fifty Shades, but who are not active in the lifestyle I would NEVER recommend this book. It does leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. For those however who truly are interested in a D/s lifestyle and want to read an 'honest and frank - all holds bared' side of it, I would recommend it. There is nothing black and white about D/s, there is no absolute rules, this is just one side of it that some people could perhaps enjoy.

I did say I wasn't going to write a review, and there I go doing just that. The reason for my 5 stars was because the author kept me riveted, even if she did make me queasy and in some scenes, quite upset and disturbed, (which is a good result for any writer to get from their readers in my opinion). I found no fault with her writing and have walked away thinking that I understand even more about the D/s dynamic, even if it wasn't pretty.

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