Estimated reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Hello, Darling Beloved Angst Junkies! Today I am sharing a review of a “Comfort Food” by Kitty Thomas. Warnings first as taken from Kitty:

WARNING: This is not a story about consensual BDSM. This is a story about “actual” slavery. If reading an erotic story without safewords makes you uncomfortable, this is not the book for you. This is a work of fiction, and the author does not endorse or condone any behavior done to another human being without their consent.

I’m confident you’re still with me, Angst Junkies. After all, this is exactly the kind of stuff we like. Right?

Kitty describes her book as:

Emily Vargas has been taken captive. As part of his conditioning methods, her captor refuses to speak to her, knowing how much she craves human contact. Told in the first person from Emily’s perspective, Comfort Food explores what happens when all expectations of pleasure and pain are turned upside down, as whips become comfort and chicken soup becomes punishment.

Comfort Food is 97 pages long in PDF format and comes in at 52,396 words. This book truly is unlike anything I’ve ever read before and this is why I want to share it with you.

Let me first begin with this comment. First-person narrative is not something I enjoy. Typically, if a book is first-person, I leave it alone. Why? I find the writing takes the easiest way out. I believe it lazy and uninspiring.

Kitty puts me in my place promptly.

The controversial themes in this book—kidnapping, mental conditioning, victimization, coercion, sexual fetish—are not lazy or uninspiring in the least. Kitty forces us into Emily’s head with an enviable skill that makes us her. We’re not drowning in ridiculous details that do nothing to push the story forward. Everything we read is there for a reason, even if we’re initially unaware of its meaning.

Emily is like so many modern women. Talented, career-oriented, successful. I liked her character immensely. She was honest and refreshing in her observations.

In the movies, there’s always a way out. It doesn’t matter where the bad guy traps you, there’s a way out. You can pick a lock, or use some kerosene, a match, and some sort of fuse and make a bomb to blow the door off. You can crawl out through the ceiling tiles, or smash a window, or find some weak point in the wall and start chipping away at it with a sharp tool you just happen to have in your pocket.

My cell was a fortress. It made the movies seem very contrived. It really isn’t that hard to create an inescapable fortress if you stop to think about it. All you need is a solid floor, walls, and ceiling, and one exit using fingerprinting and retinal scans.

Emily isn’t an escapist character which all our super-spy fantasies can channel through. There is no false, spunky heroism or zingy one-liners that so many authors employ just to prove how “bad-ass” their female lead is. Emily is who she is—flaws and all. Intelligent, observant, and above all, honest. As such, I could trust her and focus on the chilling story she had become part of.

Given the non-consensual subject matter, the Captor is a wonderful departure from what one would expect. It’s no secret I write with the psychological implications in mind always. I often admit I began writing simply because I couldn’t find what I wanted to read in print or ebook. Too many times have I seen an unusual storyline sacrificed because of a lack of care/understanding to the psychological ramifications of the plot. So imagine my giddiness to find another writer who not only understands the need for cause and effect, but balances it so beautifully.

The Captor is God-like with his benevolent madness. We aren’t allowed into his mind for much of the book, so I found myself dissecting everything, alongside Emily, in order to read him. It would’ve been so easy to make him violent and domineering through physical strength and threat. The fact that he isn’t is quite brilliant and gutsy.

The erotica is descriptive but not gratuitous—which only goes to emphasize the captivity is beyond sex. What we have is seduction, Angst Junkies. We are compelled to understand the Captor and Emily’s emotional motivations in turns. Whether you agree or enjoy the ending is debatable and quite depends on your mindset. I loved the ending and if there is a request I can make it’s this: MORE! A vignette, short, novel—whatever.

In closing, Kitty’s undeniable skill takes this book from ordinary slave-literary-porn to something so very special. I encourage you all to purchase “Comfort Food.” Kitty currently has a $0.99 sale going on until the end of May so go get it now! You won’t be disappointed.

EDIT 8-12-10

Kitty’s Amazon sale is over but you can still purchase this title at Smashwords.