One good thing about traveling is that you often have to read whatever comes your way and are more likely to have to stick with it. Not to say that I wouldn't read smut back home, but there is no way I could justify finishing this turd of a book if I had access to my local library and my own bookshelf. So anyway, WEALTH, there is nothing more boring (not to mention revolting) than a bunch of rich porknobs who are wallowing in the shit. The main character, Elliot, is a rich playboy who was spoiled rotten by his father, who bought him expensive whores and young boys and whatever to play with. He lived a life full of adventure tossing his daddy's money around, one that we all could only dream of. Through his father's connections, he also became a photojournalist who covered the war in Beirut, where he saw all kinds of the horrors of war and photographed them, only to big-heartedly become famous. After witnessing all this horror but not being able to participate in it, he became a masochist fetishizing the pain he never experienced or was able to inflict when covering war. So he spends more of his father's money to be a slave on an island of wealthy perverts to fulfill this fetish. In the meantime, in spite of his hard, worldly, rugged heart, he falls for his master or spankstress or whatever on this fantasy island. Not stranger to old money herself, she also founded and runs this island of spankers, where she's the iron-willed dom in charge. But they both go soft for each other and fall in love so deeply over a couple of days that they take off from this island paradise and run around the states throwing money at limousines and five star restaurants and elaborate hotels and dumb rich people bullshit while reverting to a tender vanilla sex relationship. Elliot reads his love passages from his favorite book "On The Road" while a limo waits in the lobby with no apparent awareness of the irony. OK, so this book is really dumb. I need say no more. But what really stands out and moves me to write about it all is the fact that these characters suck. They've seen no real struggle and wallowed in money their whole lives and are as boring and one-dimensional as hell, in spite of being lucky enough to live rich lives full of experience. But this is fantasy, so apparently, a lot of people are so obsessed with wealth and power that they get off on reading about such dirtbags and feeling the twist of the knife when they can't pay their bills. Maybe they fantasize about such a life for themselves. It was odd to me that in a genre fiction escape novel such as this, the reader would prefer characters who have had no obstacles to overcome whatsoever and fetishize the wealth and ease of some trust fund babies. Weird. I just found the whole thing to be completely confounding and insulting. The real masochism in this book is what your average reader experiences when they read this crap while struggling to get by.To think I came away with all of this; if I had been at home I would've just skipped to the dirty parts.Here's a couple of quotes, just for the hell of it: "The cabin was OK. Rich, brown leather armchairs, mirrors all over the place, large bunk with too many cushions, built-in video monitor with a library of films on laserdisc under it. Sherlock Holmes of all things and the erotic classics "Story of O", "Justine", "Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" Beauty's Punishment", "Romance of the Rod"." An author has license to plug two of her own books as classics in her own book, right?"'Can I get get you a drink, sir?' The flight attendant bent down close to my ear.The two Latin Americans-I was sure that is what they were-had turned to each other a little more sharply, the conversation rising to shut everything out.'Yeah,' I said disgustedly, glaring at the lumpy men and Lisa sitting next to them."Hmmm...
True story: I first read this book when I was 13, and rebound it with a "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" novel cover, so I could read it without attracting comment. The book felt shocking and scandalous then, but now it feels - to me - like a traditional romance novel surrounded by the trappings of BDSM. I think this book is a paean to embracing and owning your sexuality, and that nothing consenting adults do to each other is wrong. I think it's generally a positive fantasy depiction of BDSM. However, it's also a traditional romance novel in which two adults fall madly in love with each other, get engaged, and ultimately decide BDSM doesn't work for them any longer.Lisa, the female protagonist, has spent her entire adult life engulfed in BDSM, and views it as her vocation. She co-owns and runs a very exclusive, very structured kinky sex club/island resort. Elliot, the male protagonist, has spent the last couple years engaged in BDSM play; in part as a way to process the war and trauma he's witnessed while working as a photojournalist in Beirut.When they meet, they try to play within the their predetermined sexual roles, only to very quickly realize that something's different - they're wildly attracted to each other, but BDSM isn't quite what they want from one another. Lisa breaks Elliot out of The Club, and they have a whirlwind tour of New Orleans (dinner! dancing! dive bars! long slow gentle love making in the French Quarter!).Lisa then falls apart because she a) is madly and passionately in love with Elliot and b) Lisa's entire sexual experience has involved BDSM. She's never had vanilla sex, and her life, her vocation, involves running The Club. She's constantly surrounded by BDSM - it's at the heart of who she is and what she does. She can't reconcile the two elements of herself - someone who enjoys/enjoyed kinky sex, and someone whom Elliot can love.(view spoiler)[They then, on the very last page, get engaged. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Exit To Eden (1998)?
This was the first "adult" book I ever read... and what a great beginning it was. Anne's lush writing style and frank descriptions of sex drove my young brain and body into a fevered overdrive. I wanted to go to the island she described. I wanted to feel the sting of the crop on my legs. And when the two of them escaped to New Orleans, I wanted to experience the buttery nipples, dusted with cinnamon... It lit me on fire.The book took me places in my imagination that eventually led to my first satisfaction. I wanted to review it first because it was my first, and it opened my eyes to the possibilities of love that insipid cartoons and romance novels had held closed. I am so grateful this book existed, along with Belinda which I read immediately afterwards, because sometimes even fiction can still speak Truth.
—Eroti Cliterature
This has to be my favorite Anne Rice book, and one of my top 10 books of all time. It's a step beyond erotica and S&M; it's more of a journey of how love grows when one doesn't even know it. Lisa's character is very raw, her sexual growth is very real, her experiences are something that a lot of people go through when they grow into sexuality at an early age, and then start discovering what their feelings are.Elliot...oh dear, Elliot kills me, I just love him. Elliot is very real, he's the imperfect man that's so perfect because of his reality, because he's unafraid to be in touch with his sexuality, to live those dark fantasies most of us have but never dwell upon.I also have to express my deep love for Martin Halifax; he's the pillar of the cloud.
—Marie Meriwani
SummarySecluded island. Hundreds of consensual sex-slaves bound by a 2-year contract. Couldn't get better than this, right? Not until a little thing called 'love' makes things complicated.Positive Critiques If Exit to Eden is a tree then Fifty Shades of Grey is a flowery branch.Well-written.Scenes became a 'movie' in my head.I felt for the character's emotions.'Meh' Critiques I don't even want to call this a negative critique--This specific genre is not my clique. I don't mind a book with sex. It just gets 'outside my box' when it is male-male, female penetrating male, and "consensual rape". Wow, I never thought I could define "consensual rape". If you are curious, look mid-way in the book for the 'games'. You'll understand.This is where the book gets a low rating from me. It is written well, it was just not really in my genre of books to read.Negative Critiques I am pushing to find a negative critique: The ending of the story wrapped up quickly. I would have enjoyed the ending of the book more-so if the main characters had more personal obstacles/roadblocks/what not to overcome. [edited two weeks later] - Now I know what was bugging me about this story. The two main characters are described as athletic, fit, muscular, gorgeously-nude people. However, all throughout the book, they continuously drink a lot of alcohol. I mean a lot of alcohol. They should have beer bellies, not six pack abs.
—Michael
