DRC provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Representation: gay protagonist, gay tertiary characters, gay Black tertiary character.

Content Warning: rape, homophobia, conversion therapy, sexual harassment, fat-shaming, violence, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, anxiety, child rape, child abuse, paedophilia, coercion, gas-lighting, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, suicide, arson.

Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage is an extremely dark story about rape and the incredible strength one needs to speak up about it.

Jonah leaves his family home to look for success in New York. There, he meets the alluring, famous playwright Richard Shriver. The beginning of their relationship is like a dream for Jonah. A dream that will soon transform into a nightmare.

This book was not for me and I really need to find the will to stop reading a book when this happens, but I feel bad about not finishing a novel, moreover when I get the chance to read one early.

The only part I “liked” was the ending, both because it meant there will be no other pages to read and because Jonah found some sort of peace. My words are not meant, though, to belittle Parks-Ramage’s work. Another reader could find the novel riveting. I did not. I was enraged and upset from beginning to end. My heart broke for Mace and it reminded me of all the horrible stories I heard of other child stars who suffered in the film industry because of abusive agents, producers and directors, etc... One could also dwell upon the complexity of Jonah’s character and the ways he decides to cope with the abuse he suffered, but again I am not the one to do so.

An LGBT Rebecca filled with dark gothic elements and gripping painful scenes of abuse. Clever, earnest, and full of twists I never saw coming.

"Yes, Daddy" is an expertly crafted, bizarre tale of the humiliation and redemption of a troubled young man. In the 1970s and 80s, I grew up reading Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. The ghosts of these two literature icons must've collaborated together in order to write a modern gay version of "Cinderella"--one that begins as a fairy tale, but quickly turns into a hideous nightmare.

Jonah Keller is a lonely, impoverished gay waiter with a buff body and the burning desire to become a wealthy playwright. Foolishly, he begins stalking wealthy, famous playwright and screenwriter Richard Shriver. Richard wines and dines Jonah. However, the elder playwright is no fool; he knows when he's being played. Soon, he has Jonah moved into his compound in the Hamptons. Jonah finds himself a prisoner--an indentured servant--among the sexually abused waitstaff. He has become a perverse boy-toy for Richard and his evil cronies who all live at the compound.

I found Jonathan Parks-Ramage's "Yes, Daddy" to be extremely intriguing and avant-garde. The novel's protagonist, Jonah Keller, is desperately trying to achieve what many of us only fantasize about. He dreams of falling in love and marrying someone rich and famous who will help improve his station in life. For many people, it is an innocent daydream. However, Jonah is an arrogant young stud who begins stalking the object of his fantasy, Richard Shriver. Naturally, this has disastrous consequences.

Richard is the ultimate sugar daddy. He thinks he is the sun as liquor, drugs, and lots of pretty boys orbit around him. At his gated compound in the Hamptons, there is a basement where Richard and his theatrical friends indulge in perverse sexual pleasures with young men. (This novel graphically describes these "pleasures" and shouldn't be read by children and young adults. At times, I felt I was reading pornography.) Richard is the novel's evil, amoral antagonist. He is often compared to Harvey Weinstein.

Jonah is the son of a preacher. Secrets from Jonah's past are brought to light. He underwent intensive, controversial therapy from a quack who tried desperately to blame Jonah's homosexuality on one of his parents. This had disastrous consequences. Initially, Christianity is put into a bad light. However, towards the novel's end, it is the church that brings some healing into Jonah's life. Emphasis is placed on love and forgiveness. I've always believed that, if everyone truly loved each other, most of the world's problems would simply vanish.

Jonah is a liar. His lies get people into serious trouble; they destroy lives. Like his Biblical namesake, he is a coward who is always running away from his obligations, turning his back on his friends when they need him the most. Later, he wonders why he is alone. However, like the Biblical Jonah who escapes from the belly of the giant fish, Jonah attempts to make amends. During the #MeToo movement, he reveals his relationship with Richard Shriver. However, does his help come too late for all those young men who were abused by the renown playwright? Can Jonah find redemption? If he can't find redemption in the eyes of Man, can he find it in the eyes of God?

The entire time that I was reading "Yes, Daddy," I kept thinking of the old adage: "Be careful what you wish for." Sometimes dreams and fantasies are better left alone as simply dreams and fantasies. If we are not wise with our choices, dreams can turn into nightmares. Also, when attempting to climb the ladder of success, it is best to climb it alone and not try standing on someone else's shoulders. Furthermore, families are extremely important. It is best to love our children with kind, gentle words and not harsh, cruel ones. Sometimes love is a conscious decision that we must make on a daily basis. Also, you can love someone without accepting their beliefs as your own.

Jonathan Parks-Ramage has written an incredible journey that chronicles a young man's twenty-year struggle to regain his freedom, both physically and emotionally. Some readers will pass on "Yes, Daddy" as that "dirty little book about gays." However, once readers dive into its pages, they will discover there are valuable lessons to be learned about love, forgiveness, and redemption. Jonah and Richard are merely reflections of flaws within our own souls. I'm very glad I said, "Yes!" to reading "Yes, Daddy." It provided me with a few hours of mystery, intrigue, and suspense as I kept wondering about Jonah's fate. I also keep wondering, with horror, how many true-life Richards are out there in the world?

As a queer person, this was honestly one of the most offensive books I've ever read! I'm not opposed to queer villains by any means, but I am opposed to books full of irredeemably awful queer characters who are only made better by....going to church? This book was an unending parade of awful, triggering content presented in such a lackadaisical fashion that I found myself wondering what was even the point of reading it. If this had simply been a chronicle of Jonah and Richard's fucked-up relationship, I would have enjoyed it much more. Instead I was left scratching my head and questioning how it even got published.

"A propulsive, scorching modern Gothic, Yes, Daddy follows an ambitious young man who is lured by an older, successful playwright into a dizzying world of wealth and an idyllic Hamptons home where things take a nightmarish turn.

Jonah Keller moved to New York City with dreams of becoming a successful playwright, but, for the time being, lives in a rundown sublet in Bushwick, working extra hours at a restaurant only to barely make rent. When he stumbles upon a photo of Richard Shriver - the glamorous Pulitzer Prize - winning playwright and quite possibly the stepping stone to the fame he craves - Jonah orchestrates their meeting. The two begin a hungry, passionate affair.

When summer arrives, Richard invites his young lover for a spell at his sprawling estate in the Hamptons. A tall iron fence surrounds the idyllic compound where Richard and a few of his close artist friends entertain, have lavish dinners, and - Jonah can’t help but notice - employ a waitstaff of young, attractive gay men, many of whom sport ugly bruises. Soon, Jonah is cast out of Richard’s good graces and a sinister underlay begins to emerge. As a series of transgressions lead inexorably to a violent climax, Jonah hurtles toward a decisive revenge that will shape the rest of his life.

Riveting, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, Yes, Daddy is an exploration of class, power dynamics, and the nuances of victimhood and complicity. It burns with weight and clarity - and offers hope that stories may hold the key to our healing."

This sounds like a delicious thriller from the seventies, and I am HERE FOR IT!

Yes, Daddy is about an aspiring playwright named Jonah who works as a waiter in New york. He meets successful playwright Richard Shriver and the two soon begin a romance. When Richard invites Jonah to his Southhamptons home, Jonah cannot helo but notice the young gay men with mysterious bruises and things begin to take a darker turn.
This book is not only about how the gap between the rich and the poor create a breeding ground for violence, it's also comments on the #metoo movement of 2016 , and how certain people, namely the media used that opportunity to gain clicks without really caring about the people who had suffered from the abuse and trauma inflicted on them by these men. Some may feel a but disappointed by this books's conclusion it is also a personal story about Jonah and his trauma and his road to healing. It is not an easy story to read but it is deeply moving one

2.5 ⭐

This book was dark in the kind of way I wasn't entirely expecting. The kind of dark that makes you feel uneasy and sick to your stomach. This book is written to make you feel uncomfortable.

The author had some good ideas but perhaps too many. This book is a lot. I feel like, maybe had they focused on just a few major elements, instead of trying to cram every single bad thing you can think of into the story - it would have been better.

The characters and story need more depth to make them believable.

I'd recommend this to readers who are looking for a rollercoaster ride and aren't afraid of a little nausea.

*Thank you so much to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the author and Netgalley, for granting me access to an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Horrific abuse of gay men by other gay men is revealed in this novel. Difficult to read. While the book takes place in current times, I suspect that this type of activity was more common many years ago - at least that is my hope.

Firstly, thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was expecting a sexy, dark thriller. And it is, yet so much more. The story centers around Jonah, a twenty something year old trying to catch a break as he waits tables in New York City. An aspiring playwright, he dreams of meeting the legendary playwright Richard Shriver, who he believes would solve all his problems financially. He orchestrates a meeting with Richard and they both hit it off. Believing himself in love, Jonah accepts an invitation from Richard to stay at his home in the Hamptons. And that's when things start to go south.

I loved it and I don't want to give too much away, but I really think the author did a fantastic job covering the topics of #MeToo and religion. The story itself is one straight from the headlines. The best type of books are where fiction and reality blend together almost seamlessly and this is one of them. An important detail I want to point out is none of the events of the book would have happened if Jonah had felt love and acceptance from his family. He was still a lost little boy inside, literally, looking for love in all the wrong places. Really hit home. I'm giving it 4/5 stars because in some parts there were loose threads and events that weren't fully fleshed out. But rather than that I highly recommend it

Review will be posted on my Instagram. Username booknookcook04

YES, DADDY gripped me from the prologue. Jonah Keller is a young playwrite struggling to make it in New York City. He devises a plan to become the new lover of Richard Shriver, a well established playwrite who appears to have a penchant for younger men. With any thriller, I don’t want to give away too much plot since that’s part of the journey. This book is surprising, fun, emotional, and I couldn’t put it down.

I’ve read a few books lately with themes of family, money, and survival in the gay community. This novel deals with all of these ideas in an interesting and compelling way. I really liked how this novel establishes Jonah as a sympathetic but imperfect character. I really felt for him when learning about his religious upbringing with a father who was a pastor at a mega-church. The novel uses the second person (you) to great effect, inserting it at occasions where you think the narrator (Jonah) may be talking directly to the reader. This technique is chilling and arresting in a very twisty book. About two thirds of the way through the book, the tone changes. Without giving too much away, it diffuses some of the thriller aspects of the novel and becomes a story of dealing with trauma. This change was abrupt, and though it didn’t change how much I enjoyed the book, it was a big jarring. I enjoyed that this book wasn’t predictable and I like how it handled sensitive issues.

Is this the gay beach read of the summer? I guess we’ll have to wait to see how many men are reading it on Fire Island this summer. Based on the reviews of other friends, I have a feeling this will be a hit. If you’re looking for a gay, twisty novel that you can’t put down, I recommend it. Available May 18, 2021. Thank you to HoughtonMifflinHarcourt and Jonathan Parks-Ramage for the opportunity to read this advance copy.

This sounded like a book I'd love, but sadly I didn't. It wasn't an easy read in terms of intense subject matter and I lost interest in the story about half way through unfortunately.

This was a HEAVY book. Readers please mind the below trigger warnings before diving into this title. 'Yes, Daddy' is a powerful portrayal of the cycles of physical, psychological and sexual abuse that doesn't hold back.

Yes, Daddy follows the protagonist Jonah throughout his life starting as a young gay man grappling with his sexuality among the conservative grip of the evangelical church. The reader follows Jonah, slightly older living in NYC meeting a successful older man who at first seems perfect but perfect can be deceiving.

Parks-Ramage weaves a devastating story of true horrors inflicted upon the MC and the effects of this life proceeding. I was gutted reading as Jonah was victimized over and over throughout his life for his sexuality and what he did/didn't do. I was exhausted reading this story after it was over because I felt so strongly for this character. I wanted a happy ending for him so badly. This story was beautifully written in first person prose told mainly in letters and journaling (though you often forgot it was supposed to be a journal). I think this was an important story to tell and I highly recommend.

Trigger Warnings: Explicit scenes of rape, sexual assaults, sex slavery, conversion therapy and emotional abuse

Gosh, this is such a hard book to review.
On the one hand, I was hooked the entire time I read this.
Jonah's story reminded me a lot of the phrase "young, scrappy and hungry" and I was entranced in his ambition and his belief that he could become a famous playwright by dating one who's decades older. The story was incredibly compelling and much of that is due to Parks-Ramage's incredible writing that felt reminiscent of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - this idea of the American Dream, of the corruption of the world and never really seeing beyond the curtains of greed, power and fame.
On the other hand, this book had a lot of flaws and also a lot of traumatic scenes that were...well, traumatizing. Major trigger warnings for multiple explicit rape scenes, abuse (both physical and verbal) and other cruelties. I heard that this book was optioned for film and I am curious to see how they're going to bring this story to the screen especially with all the horrible things Jonah goes through.
All in all, I think the concept of this story was great but I felt that the violent scenes were often gratuitious and more about shocking the reader than anything else.
While I don't recommend this to everyone (you need to be in a certain headspace to read it and if sexual abuse is something you're unfortunately personally familiar with, then this is not the book for you, I promise you this is triggering as hell) I still think that Parks-Ramage has incredible talent and I think that this book just shows his writing prowess. I really am intrigued to read other books by him in the future..just maybe with a bit more stomachable subject matter.

Jonah, an aspiring playwright struggling to make ends meet as a waiter in New York, hatches a plan to seduce the rich and famous playwright Richard Shriver. Soon, his idyllic relationship with a richer older man becomes the thing of nightmares as his boyfriend traps him in an abusive relationship where he is unable to leave. Yes, Daddy is written in a series of letters from Jonah that detail his memories and emotional responses spanning a decade of life.

I think I was disappointed in this book because I went into it with the expectation that it would be similar to other [gothic] horror books, and while there is a nod to Rebecca itself, the book felt less like a subtle uneasiness that builds into all-out horror and more of just a straight up horror book.

There's a few trigger warnings for this book, chiefly among them sexual assault, emotional/physical/verbal abuse, and evangelical conversion. For those who are survivors of sexual assault, you will intimately understand what Jonah & the others go through in the wake of their abusive relationships. This book serves as a gay #MeToo perspective that could easily happen in New York today, and raises the sometimes uncomfortable reality of how the media treats abusers & victims.

It also tackles how the evangelical movement treats gays, which was altogether far too true. I was a bit surprised at how Jonah's megachurch preacher father turned into a devoted ex-vangelical that wanted to reconnect with his son, which felt a little out of left field after everything that had happened and a bit unrealistic. Still, that could very well be my own bias showing through, as I cannot imagine any of the evangelicals I grew up with making such a dramatic shift in faith. Parks-Ramage's journey of his own faith shines through this, which is likely why it was added, and makes sense in that context.

Overall, I felt that this was less a horror classic and more of a solid book on the less-talked-about part of #MeToo and its impact on gay men. The critiques of how rich men use desperate young men that have no other options to act out their sick fantasies are on point, and the horrors that conversion therapy, the 'repressed memory' movement that was borne out of the satanic panic, & the dangerous impact that evangelical theology can have on queer youth is extremely real. But the book felt less like a building horror and more of a in your face, you know exactly what's happening when it's happening kind of novel. It was horrifying, yes, but not in the sense that typical horror books are. In some places I felt like the story and the realities of how bad it was were being spoon-fed to me, which cis, straight people may need for themselves. I went into this book really wanting to love it, but it just fell flat in too many places for me.

This story is about Jonah, who flees to NYC as an inspiring playwright. after family matters due to his sexuality. He seeks out love and acceptance from a well known, wealthy playwright who is older than him. What at first seems like a fairy tale of sorts, rapidly turns into a toxic and abusive relationship. Park-Ramage's descriptive writing had me cringing at parts, yet I could not stop reading. . Jonah will learn he is not alone in the abuse he experiences either. You will follow Jonah on his struggles to try overcome his past in this fascinating, debut novel. Thank you # Netgalley for advanced reader copy. . Can't wait to see what else is in store for this author.

I was able to read this book thanks to NetGalley. Wow. What an amazing book this was. It had it all and took me on an emotional rollercoaster. I was so invested in Jonah and his story. I have been recommending this one to everyone! I can’t wait to read more from this author in the future! Thanks again to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book

Wrenching and brutally funny, this novel takes aim at homophobic theology that primes gay youth for abusive relationships and self-harm. Jonah is a preacher's son whose family forces him into conversion therapy, with terrible results for everyone. As a waiter and aspiring writer in NYC, he latches onto a famous older playwright as the answer to his financial and emotional desperation.

The twists and turns of the first half of the novel are truly chilling as the older man maneuvers him into sexual slavery. Family rejection has left Jonah without the resources to escape, and lingering religious guilt makes him feel he deserves to be raped. This section was grotesque yet plausible, with moments of brilliant satire amid the horror. As we've seen from the past four years of American history, a buffoonish character can be just as dangerous as a mustache-twirling villain. Five-star material here.

For me, the second half of the book was not as original or as grounded in a physical place and community. Eight years later, Jonah is a self-hating, lonely journalist dealing with the aftermath of recanting his abuse story when another of the playwright's victims brought him to trial. I felt this section depended too much on summary instead of scene, keeping me at a remove from the other characters and winding up their stories too neatly. This is a novel of ideas, which I appreciate. However, the balance between argument and demonstration was not as smooth in the second part.

I admit I'm also biased against family reconciliation stories. Jonah's final self-reinvention seemed to me like an emotional regression, the "Yes, Daddy" of the title, stripped of its irony and sexual charge.

It's hard to outdo the author in (justified, IMHO) cynicism about the evangelical church, but here goes: I didn't believe that a church would immediately remove a popular pastor based on sexual assault memories recovered by his alleged victim. The patriarchy protects its own.

Parks-Ramage really knows his Christian subcultures. From Jonah's VeggieTales bedsheets to his education at Wheaton (the evangelicals' Harvard, or so they claim), to the NYC megachurch that serves up the same old love-bombing and doubletalk in a shiny new package, this is the world I remember with a weird mix of anger, nostalgia, and puzzlement. He also gets the New York rich gay asshole scene just right. If there isn't already a restaurant called Perdition, watch for it in a gentrified neighborhood near you.

Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I am so sorry that I don't have a more positive take to offer.

This book sounded totally up my alley, and I fully expected to love it: a noir-ish gay(-er) Sunset Boulevard vibe? A queer #MeToo era story of a young playwright and his famous lover during a Hamptons getaway when things turn out to be far from what they seem? Sign me up!

But whoa, this was a nasty story, deeply and irredeemably unpleasant, full of violent rape (and more rape, and still more rape) and chased with loads of suicidal ideation -- truly no fun at all. Well, okay, a good book can be about unpleasant things, so how's the writing? Not good enough, unfortunately, to bear the weight of the subject matter.

Jonah, the protagonist, has a blinding ambition to be… well, it’s not really clear what. When we meet him, he’s unkind to everyone (his landlord who has the audacity to expect the rent, his poor mother whose money he is spending on designer clothes and then demanding more to pay said rent), he’s bizarrely fixated on starting a relationship with an older man he picked out of an event listing. He’s not very likable. Worse, he’s not very believable. He’s supposed to have just received an MFA in playwriting, having spent his grad school years writing experimental plays, but he’s so thinly drawn, so much less savvy, curious, or passionate than I’d expect a young experimental playwright to be. He's impossibly credulous and aimlessly ambitious in ways that don't really fit his (few) biographical particulars. Jonah doesn't respond to the events around him in a way that seems authentic or plausible, and this is one of the fundamentally frustrating things about this book: I couldn’t ever really even settle into disliking him as a character, because I just never bought him as a character.

Let’s try out the premise that this is a book about the perils of ambition: (one of the characters unsubtly says as much about Jonah’s self-referential story-within-the-story that figures unsatisfyingly into the first half of the book). If so, it’s a really odd straw-man version of ambition. Nothing the characters do seems well-motivated -- what do they want so badly? Some nebulous idea of success? Jonah doesn’t really seem to want anything tangible, and he is frustratingly easy to dupe. Richard, Jonah’s lover, is similarly one-dimensional -- Richard doesn’t have much of an arc, to put it mildly.

On top of that, Jonah’s passivity -- oh my word, Jonah almost never makes a choice, almost never encounters a complication that enlarges our understanding of his world. He sets out on a course, he does what he plans. Someone tells him he cannot do something, he listens. Reality is in front of him, and we’re supposed to believe he doesn’t see it. Someone tells him he has to do something, he complies, sometimes feeling the barest whisper of an internal conflict, but then quickly talking himself out of even that small resistance. Buffeted along by the bad events of the story, his choices rarely have meaningful consequences, and he rarely makes choices at all. Passivity may be an understandable adaptation to the kind of abuse he suffers, but passivity is not usually a great dramatic choice for the main character of a thriller.

The second half of the book takes a weird turn toward religion, which is handled with all the subtlety of a Chick tract. The religious arc of the story seems like it may come from the author’s own interest in “ex-vangelical” ministry (based on the book's acknowledgments). I feel like I may be missing some evangelical cultural reference points that would make that part of the book more satisfying. It’s certainly possible that this storyline speaks to folks in that community more than it spoke to me. (If I’d have known that’s where this was headed, I probably wouldn’t have been interested, so consider this the heads up I wish I had gotten: evangelical religion is, eventually, a big topic of this book.)

One nice thing I can say about this book is that some sections were well-paced and absolutely propulsive. There’s a lot happening, and occasionally some real momentum, despite the shortcomings. And hey, a queer take on #MeToo, sex trafficking in the entertainment industry, the horrors of conversion therapy, these are all important and timely subjects; it’s a shame that, wading into those waters, this book didn’t have more serious and satisfying things to say about them.

Before I read this story, I thought the cover was beautiful. Now it's painful to look at after I know what the story entails. I'm not sure what I expected from reading this book. but wow it's one of the most fucked up books I've ever read. I read it in one sitting because I needed to know what led Jonah to what he did in the first chapter. The story discusses power and class dynamics as well as sexual and religious trauma. It's confusing, queer, and devasting. The ending is realistic and bittersweet. The writing is absolutely amazing, and it kept me from turning away and screaming at times because of the heart-wrenching themes. Queer stories and lives are emotionally exhausting and tragic to read. The world is an ugly place for marginalized groups, and for those who write about their experiences. The conversations surrounding trauma in this story are AMAZING, again the writing is so good. The whole novel felt like a cold truth and bitter reality served on a silver platter.

This novel had characters I could invest in (and root against!), a setting so well-described it was like I was there, and a plot that just wouldn't let go. In a word, it was bingeable.

"Yes, Daddy" tells the story of Jonah, a young queer man trying to make his place in the world. Trapped by economic realities, Jonah finds solace (or so he believes) in Richard, a well-regarded, well-established playwright who introduces Jonah to a wealthy, upper-crust lifestyle. Indeed, all it takes is one invitation from Richard for a weekend in the Hamptons to upend Jonah's life forever. With a riveting, unexpected plot, Parks-Ramage's work is marred only slightly by an odd ending that highlights the religious subtext of the entire novel.