REVIEW: Naughty Wishes: Mind by Joey W. Hill
Book ReviewsBDSM / bisexual / Contemporary / Erotic-Romance / friends-to-lovers / m/m / menage / novella / queer / serial6 Comments
Dear Joey W. Hill,
The Naughty Wishes serial continues with part three, “Mind”.
I recommend readers start with part one “Body” (review here) and read part two, “Heart” (review here) before picking up part three. Even more so than part two, “Mind” does not work well as a stand alone.
*spoilers for parts one and two follow*
I said in my initial review that I found myself feeling “overfull” during my read of “Mind” and that I decided to read something else as a bit of a palate cleanser in between it and the final novella of the serial, “Soul”. The “too much” feeling was a result of reading all three one after the other I think. They were intended to be read with some time and distance in between them and it made sense to me that read all together they may make an over-rich dessert.
But “Mind” has been the least successful part of this serial for me (so far at least, I have yet to read “Soul”) for other reasons too.
First however, to what I liked. I liked the backstory the reader is given about how Chris and Geoff met and how important their friendship has been over the years. For Geoff in particular, Chris was a lifeline after being disowned by his own mother. Geoff and Chris have been best friends, through thick and thin, over many years.
While Chris has always known that Geoff is comfortably bisexual and also a Dom, Chris’s sexual preferences have been less transparent. In the previous story, Chris found latent Dom-y tendencies; he enjoyed tying Sam up and the idea of spanking her was hot, but this was more to do with his pleasure at her reaction than his own pleasure at being in charge. (Geoff, on the other hand, finds pleasure in both things and really needs both things for his own enjoyment to be complete.) Chris is content to let Geoff take the lead with Sam in many ways but he makes it clear he is not submissive in the sense Sam is and that he will have his share of leading in their relationship. That creates a tension between the men of course, amped up with the underlying sexual tension between them.
Sam has gone on a business trip, leaving the men alone at home. For the first time, the reader is privy to both Geoff’s and Chris’s POV as it alternates throughout the story. I am glad that this occurred; I don’t think it could have worked only showing the development of the relationship between the two men only from an observer’s point of view. (Obviously, it was impossible anyway, what with Sam not actually being present for much of the story.)
In “Heart” the reader sees that there is clearly sexual interest toward Geoff on Chris’s part but he was taking some time to get his mind around it. And this is where the title and theme of part three comes from.
However, I found that there was a bit too much of the “mind” about this novella. Chris and Geoff went round and round each other, having deep and meaningful conversations which didn’t seem to me to actually say anything much. It was more a “vibe” than anything explicitly stated. At least, that’s the impression I was left with. While this may work in real life, in a novel, it’s less than satisfying. Things between Geoff and Sam and Chris and Sam were relatively simple and straightforward. As between Geoff and Chris however, matters are far more complicated. Is Chris prepared to submit to Geoff ever? Is he prepared to even have sex with Geoff or will it be left at only incidental touching while they’re both having sex with Sam? Can Chris comfortably acknowledge his bisexuality? These were all questions which clearly needed to be answered, but for me, they delved into psychobabble and doublespeak much of the the time and I became impatient with it. I think this shows my preference for direct speech over beating about the bush; other readers may find it not a problem at all. Also, I’m not good at subtle so it may be that I just missed things.
The other thing which concerned me was something I’d picked up on a little in the earlier stories but which was made obvious to me here. I think Naughty Wishes is a little too gender essentialist and some of the tone bothered me.
For instance:
He moved into the room, pausing outside the shower door. If it had been Sam on the other side, he would have put up his hand without thought, let her press hers to it, a romantic gesture so easy to do with women.
The “he” of the sentence is Geoff; the man who is comfortably bi. He gets over himself and takes a step toward intimacy but I found it incongruent with his character.
Then, there were repeated comments/thoughts by both Geoff and Chris such as:
Geoff gripped his hand, and there they were, holding hands like a couple of girls, but it felt right.
Really? “Like a couple of girls“? Like that’s a bad thing? Like it isn’t entirely natural for partners of the same gender identity (or any gender identity) to hold hands? (with the caveat that some people are not the hand-holding type at all of course).
And this:
When he’d been with Sam, a well of feeling had cracked open inside him. Woman was a vessel that could take all that feeling, absorb it into her, keep a man balanced.
I just don’t agree that only women can do that. And it is actually clear in the book that it is not true anyway.
Geoff was the worst offender, something which surprised me given his “comfortably bisexual” persona but Chris had a lot of discomfort of anything he perceived as being like a “girl”. Even given his clear respect for Sam and her abilities and strengths, I found it insulting. Please God can we stop using “like a girl” as a pejorative?
I read a fair bit of m/m. There are some stories where there is clearly a partner who prefers only to be the pitcher and the other the catcher. In others, the men like to switch it up. I have a personal beef with stories where the switching happens only as a result of some kind of sex checklist so that everyone’s orifices are penetrated. I don’t quite think that happened here. But I did question it because the reasons given did not entirely convince me. On the other hand, it did fit with the push/pull between Chris and Geoff over who would be dominant in their relationship; if that had’ve been the posited reason I may well have had no misgivings. As it is, I’m on the fence about it.
The most fascinating thing to me about these two men is that push/pull and I’m not entirely sure it was resolved here. Maybe it wasn’t intended to be; perhaps it will be an ongoing tension (not necessarily the bad kind) in their relationship which will keep them on their toes. But I have a feeling I’m supposed to have understood more from the various deep and meaningfuls Geoff and Chris had. Unfortunately, a lot of it went over my head.
Perhaps I’d have enjoyed the story more if I had left some time between parts two and three. I thought about it (I was beginning to recognised some of that “too much” fatigue) but I made a start when I was thinking about it and then it was too late. But I think it is regardless, for me, a weaker section than what went before. I give “Mind” a C.
Regards,
Kaetrin
Thank you for the review! I generally really enjoy Joey Hill’s books, so I skipped over a bunch of the spoiler parts, but I really liked your take on the gender essentialism.
I found the phrases you included actually pretty convincing — sexuality and gender get conflated a lot but they’re still pretty different, so someone who is bi can still be a sexist bag of hammers (and unaware of it). Folks who are socialized as men are pretty severely shoved into the man box (and pretty toxic masculinity, imo), and so something like being in love with another man can make someone overcompensate like whoa, as if it’d make them less manly. I mean it doesn’t, but we’re taught “only women like men, and women and anything feminine is inferior in every way, so a man liking a man means he’s feminine and inferior” or something along those lines.
I know this gets explored in some m/m books, but I’ve honestly rarely seen it as a deeper turmoil than just “does this make me the woman?” “Uh no?” “Oh okay then.” Even in a gay relationship a man can be worried about being judged as “too femme” by his partner by doing things that traditionally code feminine — talking about emotions, emoting with fewer reservations, vulnerability, etc. So this kind of internal struggle really speaks to me as it’s one I’ve gone through more than a few times (I’m bi, I had some severe sexism to unpack despite dating women, and even moreso later in life as a man dating men. It’s a long story. Gender identity is hard sometimes! Alllsoooo it’s cool to delete the stuff here in brackets, I’m a little squirmy about outing myself so thoroughly, especially if it’s not appropriate).
All of this said, yesss can we please stop using feminine as a pejorative and stop assigning human traits or shows of affection to only one gender, that would be rubbing me wrong the whole way even if I understood why the characters would be using those terms. Also “Woman was a vessel that could take all that feeling, absorb it into her, keep a man balanced” would likely earn a toss at the wall because yes, please, tell me more about how women are expected to do all your emotional labour for you. Grump grump grump.
YET ANOTHER set to add to the TBR, and what does it say about me right now that C reviews are more encouraging for me than recommended reads at the moment? <3
@Lindsay: LOL – thank you Lindsay. I’m only a junior grade feminist so I kind of pat myself on the back when I actually notice stuff.
I’m interested in your take about how a bi man might be worried about being too feminine (but what’s wrong with that amirite?) and relating that to sexism but I thought it might also/instead indicate an internal homophobia. It seemed to me that these statements indicated Geoff was uncomfortable having a romantic relationship with a guy and this didn’t fit well with the way he was presented as an out and proud bi man. Unfortunately, none of that was really addressed in the book and I was left feeling that it wasn’t actually coming from the characters.
@Kaetrin: I wrote a lot of words but wanted to pare down to the meat of them, and it’s STILL a lot of words, but…
There’s no wiggle room in society’s eyes, you’re either in a straight relationship or a gay one and once in one you stop being bi (even though you still are!!). Having your sexuality erased is hard enough without also feeling like you’re not… gendering the way you want, as well. Add in that gay men struggle with the “swishy effeminate gay man” stereotype (or embrace it) and it can be really hard to nail down your gender identity and feel like your authentic self (also goes for butch/femme stereotypes for lesbians). All of these things tend to really build up walls around you instead of breaking them down. We’re making strides, but there are still a lot of rules people have to follow to be considered socially acceptable (“socially acceptable gays” is the name of my next band) and it really messes with people.
Just the shower quote alone painted SUCH an emotional, resonant word picture for me, my heart ached with it because YES I have been there, where I’m not sure if something is okay, if it will make me seem too vulnerable or weak or feminine when that’s not how I want to be presenting myself, if it will make my partner disapprove of me or think less of me, and I back off because I’m afraid of being rejected for not being gay enough/man enough/woman enough/partner enough (or TOO gay etc etc). It IS mostly overthinking it, and romantic gestures really do work across all genders, but that doesn’t mean folks of all genders are comfortable in the displays if they’re already carrying the weight of societal expectations on their backs. Or that their partners are equally comfortable with them. Oh also men aren’t supposed to feel insecure (and we know how well THAT always works out for them).
Also, if Geoff is this bundle-of-feels over it, I wonder how I’ll be with Chris handling it, heh. Because for me, the only thing more intimidating than dating a gay man (as a bi man) is dating a straight-but-I-have-pantsfeels-for-you man and potentially unlocking ALL THE FEELINGS. Because sometimes they wind up directed at you, and not in good ways. I read a fair bit of m/m (and f/f when I can get it) as well as m/m/f or variations thereof, and I do find that the trope of “men communicating their feelings for each other through the buffer of the woman partner” is pretty common. I don’t really like it, I love when it’s addressed in the book itself, but it’s not unusual.
Basically, I’m honestly really interested to read this and pick it apart and see how authentic it feels. I mean it just might be that Geoff is a sexist bag of hammers and doesn’t want to be perceived as feminine and nothing more complicated than that, and while that’s jerky, that’s… well, fairly common to my experiences. When you’re being held up against another guy, a lot of people are going to be making comparisons, including yourself. Plus the notion that straight men are by default “manlier” than gay men (going back to “but only women like men…”), and… yeah. I can feel the anxiety.
There is nothing wrong with a man being feminine, or doing things that have been coded as feminine, but a lot of people are jerks about that and disagree. Mostly because they benefit from keeping men in the man box and women in the woman box and god forbid someone identify as androgynous or genderqueer or tries to sneak from one box to the other as trans without anyone noticing…
You notice a TON of stuff, it’s why I like your reviews so much! Them and the conversations and the things they make me think.
@Lindsay: Sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you Lindsay – actual paid work kept me away from blogging (as it is wont to do!). Thank you also for your kind words. :)
My own feeling is that these sexist/gender essentialist thoughts weren’t coming from Geoff, because they were echoed by both Chris and Sam at various times – I feel it was more a problem with the narrative. But, I will be very interested in your take when you read the series. Please come back and tell me what you thought!
@Kaetrin: Ahhh, that’d make a big difference to me. BIG difference. I had an author gripe at me because I left a review that every single character in the first chapter of his book makes rape jokes, and the author said that just because ALL their characters were gross rape apologists didn’t mean the AUTHOR thought those things. And I mean, I don’t usually include the author in with the book itself, but every single character had to be like that? Really? Because that’s a choice you make, conscious or not.
(I might be sensitive to that because the media I work in, every frame of screentime is meticulously worked on, hundreds of eyes see it, so nothing “slips through” — it’s been seen, noted, possibly contested, overridden, and then later blamed on lazy devs when it was signed off on multiple times, heh. This may be way less so with books, especially self-published without an editor, but that just means the onus is even more on the author to make sure they’re okay identifying with the overwhelmingly similar beliefs of their characters.)
And no worries, if I keep replying to the various reviews, is that okay? It makes it easy for me to look back, and I keep getting distracted by other genres and stuff, hee.
@Lindsay: Talking about books is one of my very favourite things to do Lindsay so comment away! :D