Too Dark

I am allowing myself to not finish reading books I don't like. It still feels wrong. Once I start reading a book, I feel like I should finish.

Lately I have been picking up books will nilly. I am pushing the envelope of my usual type of book. Sometimes it works. I just finished reading a mystery set in the 1740's. It was very interesting. However, this other one...just did not work for me.

First of all, the language. I'm not a prud. I don't mind swear words. But this felt especially crude.

Secondly the sex was nasty. Not sexy nasty - slave / humiliating nasty. That almost stopped me there. But I kept reading past that bit. Maybe it was just in there to prove a point. OK. As a statement about a bad character, that'll work. Unfortunately, no, there was a whole lot more.

Third, did not like the protagonist. So when he had icky sex that was a little too explicit, in a sticky - smelly sort of way, it lost me. I didn't like him or his friends or his world. I had no idea what his goal was. And since I wasn't feeling very kind toward him, the icky sex thrown in made me like him even less. Which made me wonder about the choice of putting that scene in there. It underscored the point that he had made bad choices in the past and apparently was going to continue to do that.

I guess that's just my taste.

The book was traditionally published, so someone somewhere thought this had a good sized audience. I wonder what that was? The protagonist is gay. So do they think gay audiences want to read about a man making bad choices? Or do they think straight audience was to see a gay man make bad choices?

I have read lots of books with gay protagonists. Doesn't matter to me as long as the story is well done. And that includes the sex scenes.