Review: Against the Rules by A. R. Barley

12 June of 2016 by ButtonsMom2003

Reviewer's Rating: 3

3.0Overall score

This one contains some pretty hardcore stuff.

Against the Rules By A. R. Barley

Contemporary Romance / New Adult / GLBTQ / MM

Released June 6, 2016

Carina Press

Series: The Boundaries Series, Book 2

Synopsis

Kelly O’Connor’s out of control

An RA at Halton University, he spends his off nights at a club, hoping to find what he’s looking for in rough sex with strangers.

Until one night the play gets a little too rough. An isolated room, a dangerous situation…and an unexpected rescue.

Ian Larkin knows what Kelly wants—a true Dom, someone who will protect him instead of using him, someone who can take him to the edge without pushing him into unsafe territory.

Ian knows just what Kelly needs, and he’s the only man who can give it to him.

There’s only one problem: Kelly is a student, and Ian is a teacher.

Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

This one contains some pretty hardcore stuff.

This is the second book in The Boundaries Series but you don’t need to have read the first one as both books are complete standalone stories. I read the first book, Out of Bounds, and liked it a lot; it was a 5-star read for me. However, I’m conflicted about this book. The writing is good, my dilemma has more to do with some of the content and the fact that the blurb for the book didn’t adequately prepare me for what I would be reading.The blurb alludes to rough play but this book took that in a direction that I was a bit uncomfortable with. I’ve read many books with BDSM themes and what I thought was some pretty hard-core stuff. But I was not prepared to read about one man biting another – hard enough to break the skin and leave bruises. This was a pretty big turnoff for me.

Strong teeth chomped down at the base of his neck, quick and hard. Pain ripped through his body as Kelly flinched in shock and surprise, but there was no escaping, not with Ian’s fingers still curled tight in his hair and his other hand still firm against his shoulder.

Kelly is a student at the college where Ian teaches but he’ll be graduating in a couple of months. Kelly is in a bad place emotionally; he’s pretty much shut down and uses pain to keep him from dealing with his feelings. Ian rescues him from a bad situation and they begin a relationship. Neither of them really talk about things in their past that are having a direct impact on how they behave now.

Ian had a bad experience with a lover/sub but he never really tells Kelly about it. He doesn’t refer to himself as a Dom although he makes sure that Kelly has a safe word. Kelly is suffering emotionally from the recent deaths of his parents but he never really talks to Ian about that either.

I had trouble feeling a real connection between Kelly and Ian. Their relationship was just a bit too twisted for me. It all works out in the end and there is an HEA. Just be warned that there are some pretty harsh things happening in this story that you might find objectionable.

I tried to put aside my bias against some of the elements of the story that I personally had a problem with when I assigned my rating. However, I had to ding it one star because I really believe that the blurb for the book should have had more of a warning for the somewhat violent nature of the BDSM elements that the story contains. If the blurb had been more accurate my rating would be 4 stars.