Reviewed by Kimberley
TITLE: Jett
SERIES: Master’s Boys #2
AUTHOR: Patricia Logan
PUBLISHER: Westburg Publishing
LENGTH: 158 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2013
BLURB:
Jett’s a tough kid, fighting his way through life and slinging dope to survive on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. When he’s arrested in a dragnet meant to clear the streets of dealers like him, Jett sees no way out. Danger awaits him in prison or in the hood. But Detective Cassidy Ryan sees potential in the handsome young man and asks a friend to help.
Phoenix, the illustrious Master P, is well-known for his love of submissive young men, and won’t turn down a friend’s request to help a troubled young man find his way. Cut from different cloth, but very much the same, Phoenix and Jett can only bump heads until a revelation causes Terrance—Master T—to take over as Jett’s training.
Master T is known for his direct, unyielding approach with his submissives. He won’t allow Jett to hide anything from him, intent on breaking down every emotional wall and finding the core submissive spirit hidden within. Will Jett find a way to connect with Master T or will his fears prevent him from accepting his true nature?
REVIEW:
Okay, this is part two in this series of novellas about a group of Doms and their subs from DOMZ.com, an online BDSM club. This gives us Jett’s story, an intelligent yet troubled young man from a side of town infested with poverty, gang violence and crime.
Jett’s story piqued my interest more than anything because as an African American, I was curious to see how the author tackled a subject like BDSM with an African American character. I remember discussing the topic of African Americans in the BDSM subculture/lifestyle/fetish a year or two ago with a friend of mine and this book came up in the discussion. I never got around to reading it then so when the opportunity presented itself again, I decided to give it a go.
Well. Where do I start? Okay, let’s first start with the length. Now, I don’t mind a novella (I’m actually quite fond of them) but this novella advertised as having 158 pages in Kindle. That’s not exactly the case. It’s more like 130-131 pages maybe, with the rest being snippets from other books. I don’t mind that at all but it just want to give a heads up about that.
Now as for the story being about Jett, umm…that’s a little dicier. Yes, it featured Jett and told his story, however, very little of it was told. I mean, I expected Jett and Master T to be the sole focus of this feature, similar to how Trick and Master P was in theirs. That wasn’t exactly the case. Jett’s story couldn’t get fully developed because Trick and P’s characters and their unresolved drama from the first book spilled into this one. I felt that too much attention was focused on their issues and very little of it focused on Jett’s character development and interaction with Master T.
Now, let’s delve a little deeper into Jett and T’s characters. Let me start with Jett. I thought that she did a pretty good job of telling his story. As always, when writing ethnic characters, it’s important to be cognizant of how the characters and their dialog is written. You have be careful not to enter into that slippery slope of stereotypes and various other racial tropes which could potentially turn off a reader. I can honestly say that she did a pretty good job of avoiding that when writing Jett’s character and his dialogue. His dialogue was pretty accurate using words in the proper vernacular in a way that didn’t stereotype him. She wrote his dialogue in the proper places and didn’t allow his character to always talk in that manner. It was only used in appropriate parts in the story and I appreciate that. She made him street but she also made it understood that he was very intelligent and interesting but misunderstood. Yes, he was a ‘thug’ but it was made clear that he felt that he was a high school graduate who insisted on getting an education and managed to graduate at the top of his class despite being in a gang. She made you aware that Jett felt that his life’s circumstances wouldn’t allow him an other option at a better way of life. He had a distrust of law enforcement, white officers in particular because of his mistreatment and negative experiences at the hands of some of them yet it was a white LAPD detective who believed in him when Jett didn’t believe in himself and reached out to Jett.
Jett was angry, bitter and angry at the world. He found people that saw something in him, a vulnerability that he had to hide in order to survive in the hood. There were so many facets and layers to Jett’s character that I felt could’ve been explored more but wasn’t because Trick and Phoenix’s storyline diverted much attention away from Jett and T. I felt this is what caused the lack of development and interaction with Jett and Master T.
With this novella being as short as it was, ALL of the attention should’ve been focused on Jett and T’s storyline and Trick and P should’ve been background characters at this point. With the length of these stories, Trick and P’s issues could have and really should have been wrapped up in their own novella.
You really didn’t get to know Master T that well. I can’t really tell you anything about him as he wasn’t featured enough in the story to get to know much about him other than he was black and gorgeous.
The author had me riding along with her in the storyline and I okay. I was with her until about halfway in. There were a couple of incidents in the book that made this sista cringe. The first incident where T does the one thing that Jett said he didn’t want without so much as a warning, hint or heads up prior to doing it. I completely understand the concept of pushing boundaries in BDSM but it was to my understanding that consent was required prior to doing anything. The author didn’t write Master T’s plan to go that far, at least not to the point of him giving it much thought. It was mentioned in passing, sort of like he decided and did it. There was no consent requested, no heads up given. That had me giving the story a side eye but I got over it.
The scene shortly after that was where the author lost me.
Not to give away any spoilers, but I will say that cages, whips, chains, shackles on any African American is something that, in reality, wouldn’t have been incorporated into sex, regardless of the race of the person who was doing it. And considering our culture, the fact that it was another black man doing it made it that much more unrealistic and less likely, actually.
It would have been culturally unacceptable. That is just something that would not have been acceptable considering the hateful history and legacy behind such accoutrements. Maybe if different methods and tools were used that weren’t culturally…offensive or undesirable would have been used it wouldn’t have been as jarring as it was.
And then the story abruptly without might of an explanation as to why Master T, choose that particular method on another black man. The story just ends with Jett supposedly having big epiphany of what it means to be a black man.
Umm. No. For black folks in general, black men in particular, that’s not how that works. That’s not how any of this works.
The story wasn’t bad or poorly written. It was just poorly executed. I think the author didn’t fully understand the cultural implications behind such actions that would make this scenario undesirable and unacceptable to an African American in reality. I give the author props for stepping outside the box and approaching this topic. It just didn’t gel with me.
More focus should have been given to Jett and Master T’s relationship and characters development. I think had that been done, maybe the book wouldn’t have felt as unfinished as it did. The story had the unfinished Return to Cold Sassy feel to it.
The author had the right recipe but wrong ingredients.
RATING: 
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