‘Yes, Daddy.’ When I saw the title I thought Yes, Please! Seeing the gorgeous cover art made me want to read the novel even more, and I am glad that I did. This novel is so much more than what I expected going into it. I expected a queer romp through some known stereotypes, with a little heat and sizzle. There is some of that, but it quickly fades into a disturbing, emotionally charged story about the power a “daddy” can have over younger men.

Set against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, this novel really dives deep into how the media can twist and contort a story until they pulverize their subject. The novel also explores the trauma that is inflicted upon a person dealing with these incidents, and how that trauma can shape your life.

Reading about Jonah made me so uncomfortable in a way I did not expect. But his story also displayed a sense of hope and determination to overcome the nightmare that has shaped him.

I am surprised to learn that this novel is Jonathan Parks-Ramage’s debut. It is crafted so well and includes so much thrill, prose, and gut-wrenching feeling, I assumed it was from a seasoned novelist. If you have the chance to read ‘Yes, Daddy’, I suggest that you do. Just be ready for a story that will undoubtedly make you angry and perhaps even change your outlook on events that we have seen all too often on the evening news.

Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for providing an ARC for me to review.

This was a wild ride. I went in expecting something entirely different and was blown away with what I got. I truly hope a lot of people reach this book! Its interesting. Very interesting.

A debut novel and I am left just absolutely speechless. This book was extremely graphic, twisted and hard to read at times. It is a dark coming of age story that sheds light on the LGBTQIA+ community and the #MeToo movement from a male view which I really appreciated.

Yes, Daddy will stay with me for a long time and I’m sure it will spark some conversation as more people read this. Shoutout to the amazing @philsbookcorner for putting this on my radar, I am so glad I read it!

Thank you to @netgalley and @houghtonmifflinharcourt for the E-ARC! This book comes out May 18th and you’ll wanna be sure to preorder / read it!

TW: Rape, abuse, drug use, suicidal thoughts and acts, gaslighting, homophobia, cyberbullying

This tried to tackle too many things -- rape and abuse, religion, parental relationships, MeToo, etc. -- in too few of pages. While most of the novel read like a thriller, the aftermath of Jonah's experiences seemed like an entirely different novel and combined with a generally unlikeable protagonist, I didn't feel the catharsis I should have felt in a story like this. While there were parts of the book that I flew through because I was so interested in how it would play out, there were equally as many "oh come on" sort of unbelievable moments, and that kind of inconsistent depth ran through many elements of this story.

I really thought this book would be a typical thriller, but there is a lot going on in this novel. Parts of it are uncomfortable (think My Dark Vanessa) but its extremely readable.

This one started out strong, but hit a rapid decline after halfway through. I would even say that I found the final third to be a bit torturous. At first all the stereotypical gay dudes taking jabs at each other was fun, but then it just got annoying… almost in the same way that hanging around a bunch of stereotypical gay dudes taking jabs at each other in real life gets boring. Who would’ve thought?

I was very excited to read a book billed as a “scorching, propulsive modern gothic” involving queer characters, but overall ended up feeling disappointed. There was just so much of this book that felt stereotypical, problematic, or just plain ridiculous. That is not to say that there aren’t fun & juicy parts, but man- so many things in here made me roll my eyes. An exasperated “oh my god” WITH an eye roll did escape my lips in the latter part of the novel.

This book was so so heavy but so great. Definitely don’t judge this book by its fun beachy vacation looking cover. Yes, Daddy is incredibly dark with many, many layers. The book isn't even out and I read that Amazon Studios has announced an adaptation. I definitely see why. Jonah is a waiter and struggling to pay rent for his Bushwick, Brooklyn, sublet apartment. Jonah aspires to be a writer but is struggling to find the connections to make it happen. Then he meets famous playwright Richard Shriver. Jonah is soon invited to Richard’s compound in the Hamptons, and things get SERIOUSLY fucked up. This book is very graphic and some people are gonna be triggered. I don't want to give away too much because the ending is quite a shocker and I wouldn't have wanted it revealed and people are going to talk about it for sure! So here is what I have to say: the writing is lyrical and very strong. The characters are well-developed and it's very easy to root for/against them. I also enjoyed the flashbacks about Jonah’s background and why he is attracted to older men. I felt like that was necessary and important to the story. Again, this isn't feel-good story as the cover would have you think. This is brutal at times and raw and bleeding. I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn't read it fast enough.

Positively wicked, suspenseful, and bleak. I tore through this book with an eagerness that I haven’t felt in a good long time. Note: The story can be extremely triggering, so content warnings for sexual assault and pedophilia.

At first glance, one would think this book to be a more lighthearted affair, but let me tell you: ‘Yes, Daddy’ is darker than black! It takes a neo-noir approach to queer thrills, which is hard to come by these days (let alone a good one!).

Some might take issue with the main character, Jonah, who is at once ambitious—to a fault—, shockingly naive, and a brainwashed apologist. He enters into a toxic “relationship” out of sheer necessity; he’s working as a “piece of meat” waiter at a problematic restaurant/bar, far behind on the rent to his grungy studio apartment, and struggling to make something of his playwriting. It’s not easy to like Jonah, but it’s even more difficult not to root for him once he enters the upper echelons of gay NYC society, which in and of itself is a swirling mass of privilege and excess—a toxic monstrosity. I won’t say much more about the story, for it takes some devastating turns, but the villain(s) feel like real people, and the plot feels like it could be ripped out of the headlines.

Where the book really excels is in the writing, for Jonathan Parks-Ramage crafts a thrilling story that’s oftentimes hard to read (in terms of subject matter), and keeps it rolling to the last page. I was frequently uncomfortable, and that’s the mark of a good read when it can elicit such strong feelings from me! It takes a truly adept author to keep you reading even when the plot makes you cringe and gasp.

So, bravo for giving the literary world a worthy queer thriller that is truly dark, devious, and wholly addictive.

This novel started off ablaze—with a confidence and boldness, stylistically, that captivates. A hungering, restless pulse simmers at the beginning, very much a New York narrative, but, as the plot accelerated, I felt it also flatten, and wither into a sort of unrelenting melodrama, with such quick and oversimplified turns that it felt almost ridiculous at points. Often the horrors of systems of power that enable and uphold abuse actually live in the unsaid, in the slow and encroaching manipulations and gaslighting, but I felt that, reading this, that terror felt reduced and caricatured to something too flaring, too hyperbolic and fast to feel genuinely unsettling. I felt an odd exhaustion at reading another novel that seemed to equate queerness with shame and abuse; of course patriarchy propagates both of those things regardless of sexuality, and queerness entails the full spectrum of human emotion, including shame, but the way this narrative is written and plays out does not feel nuanced enough in its execution, instead mostly swerving and unorganized. Near the end, the style drifted into what felt unedited and often exhaustingly redundant in its repetitions and laments.

((Please note... this will be posted to my blog on 2/25/2021. The link will not be live until then.))

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of this book. I am providing a voluntary review. All thoughts and views are my own.

I’m so torn on this one. There’s a very real part of me that wants to give it a 5-star, must-read rating and spend the next few months ranting and raving about how amazing it is. However, there’s another part of me that feels a bit… ahhh… let-down, perhaps?

Let’s see if I can explain what I mean.

I’m going to start with why I loved this book because I truly do believe it deserves mad props. It’s raw, real, and heartbreakingly deep. It tackles challenging topics and doesn’t shy away from the emotional impact of difficult, life-altering circumstances and experiences. It isn’t a light read, and it doesn’t pull any punches. I also had a hard time putting it down. I never knew what to expect next, and so the very idea of putting my Kindle away and doing anything else was absurd. I read this in one sitting and devoured each word like a reader starved.

Parks-Ramage is an excellent writer. I’m not typically one to enjoy first-person, let alone second-person. I tend to be a primarily third-person past or bust kinda reader, but the well-executed mish-mash of first/second POV present-tense works really well for this author. Or, it certainly worked well for this story, if nothing else. I absolutely adored the unique way it was told and, again, never knew what to expect. So the quasi-twist at the end hit all my feels and shocked-surprise buttons.

I also loved the characters in this book, even the ones I hated. Which, okay, that sounds a little weird, but it’s the truth. Some of the characters in this story are so evil you want to do some very, very bad things to them. And yet, Parks-Ramage wrote them in such a way that they still held some relatable traits. They weren’t that comedic level of evil where they don’t even feel real. They had flaws, they made mistakes, and you could tell there were at least a few conflicting emotions going on during various scenes. Perhaps not the ones you wanted to see them in the most, but either way, these baddies felt like real people. Which, in the end, made them all the more terrifying.

Now… clearly, I loved this book. I loved the writing. The storytelling was masterful, and the characters felt alive and real. If that’s all true, how could I possibly have any issue with this book? Well, my lovelies, let me see if I can explain without getting too spoiler-y.

Before I delve into this, I’m going to be one-hundred percent upfront by telling you that I’m an atheist. However, I respect others and their unique religious beliefs, so the fact that religion played such a large part in this book is not the issue. Not at all. My problem was the literal whiplash I felt surrounding the protagonist’s religious experiences and beliefs. Religion is a very difficult topic for many of us in the LGBTQIA+ community, so it breaks my heart when it isn’t treated carefully in LGBTQIA+ literature. I can’t really say much beyond that without giving away spoilers, which I don’t do in my reviews. Let’s just say… I wish the author had either considered removing his second-largest church-related plot point near the end of the book or considered having its conclusion be less tied to the other unsavory parts of the book’s primary plot.

Either way, I believe this is a solid 4-star read and will be very interested to see what Amazon does with it on the television screen.

Yes, Daddy follows Jonah, a young ambitious man who dreams of becoming a writer, as he struggles to make ends meet working extra hours at a restaurant, while forever trying to work on his play. When he stumbled upon a photograph of successful and handsome playright, Richard Shriver, Jonah hatches a plan to meet him, and the two begin a passionate affair. But, things quickly turn deadly as Jonah is invited to The Hamptons, where the rich and famous hang out, and where Jonah quickly learns that the man he loves may not be who he appears to be. After Jonah is cast out of Richard's good graces, and a series of sinister events lead to a terrifying climax, Jonah heads towards decisive revenge that could change his life forever.

First of all, this book is extremely graphic. So, if graphic sex scenes make you uncomfortable then this probably isn't a book for you. It also has very graphic depictions of physical and sexual violence, so please be cautious when heading into this story if this is something that you have been affected by, or again, makes you uncomfortable. But the point of this story is to make you feel uncomfortable. It highlights a shocking reality for a long of young gay men who are, and have been, preyed upon by older men. It's social commentary on the #MeToo movement is hugely relevant and I liked the different perspective shown in this story. We kind of forget that these kind of things can happen to memeber of the LGBT community, too.

This is so much more than just a thriller. It's suspenseful, shocking, extremely dark and difficult to read, and it definitely made a lasting impact on me. There were characters that I did like, a lot of characters that I didn't like. I often found myself losing empathy for Jonah at times when he made some absolutely shocking and horrible decisions, making me question whether I should really be rooting for him or not. However, as the book delved further into Jonah's past, I did find it easier to sympathise in the end, and I think Jonathan Parks-Ramage has done a wonderful job of creating a deeply flawed and realistic character that people will have a lot of different opinions about, for sure.

I really enjoyed this book and I can't find a lot of fault with it. I think it's a great debut novel that is going to have a big impact on a lot of people and will open up a lot of conversations that need to be had, and I am excited for other people to read it.

I was expecting it to be really graphic, so I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. It wasn't graphic for the most part, and every time something happened it was a punch to the heart. I think the book says a lot about the media, religion, #MeToo culture, and rape culture. I was hooked from the beginning because I wanted to know who "you" was, who Richard was, what happened. The book pulled me from my reading funk and made me cry. The only thing I would caution against is that there are fairly graphic sex scenes that aren't for the faint-hearted, almost to the point of unnecessity.

The title intrigued me but I also thought this wasn’t going to be very good. The story grabbed me from the beginning. I felt for Jonah as the story went on but some of his actions kind of annoyed me and I didn’t understand why he did them. This book is interesting in that while we have focused on the #metoo movement for women being taken advantage of by men, we haven’t really looked at it from the gay male community.

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.

Wow...I had to sit with this overnight and I don’t think I’ll forget it any time soon. It reads like a memoir, so much so that when I was reading I had to do a deep google dive into this to see if it was a true story. Jonah is a haunting main character who I rooted for so hard. I wished I could save him and give him the biggest of hugs. This book really delves into the horrid, rich and entitled power of rape. So trigger warning there -it’s deep. I cannot believe this is Jonathan’s first novel. It captures you from the very beginning. It’s sad, dark and yet there is a glimmer of hope at the end. I think lots of people will relate to this and to Jonah. It was wonderfully done. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Oh and ⭐️ on the cover art! It’s beautiful!
Thank you Netgalley for my advance copy in exchange for my honest review!

Yes, Daddy is the strong debut novel from Jonathan Parks-Ramage. It feels like a disturbing memoir, which really draws the reader in. It is the story of a young man named Jonah, who grew up in the church, with his father being an Evangelical pastor, and his mother being deeply twisted by the ideas of the faith. As Jonah matures, he tries to grapple with his sexuality while being shunned by his community and forced through conversion therapy by this parents. He is able to escape his dreadful reality and attend university away from his family, where he is able to realize that leaving the toxic environment of his youth is likely the best solution to his problems. Unfortunately, following university when Jonah moves to NYC, he finds himself in a relationship with a powerful playwright that turns extremely dark. He is forced to cut ties with everyone he knew and essentially be held captive and abused.

I could not put the book down however, upon reaching about the 80% mark, the book takes a turn and feels very rushed. The first 2/3 of the novel are so gripping and written expertly, and then it seems that Parks-Ramage ran out of steam and didn't quite have a solid conclusion thought out before he began the writing process. Jonah has a small stint of being sucked back into the church (shocker, it ends badly), and I found it very unnecessary and that it completely backtracks on all of the progress the character seemed to make. Perhaps it's because I am not a religious person in the slightest, but I didn't enjoy the character arc of an abused man falling back into and accepting the very community that essentially ruined his life in the first place.

One thing that the book did get right was the exploration of abuse in LGBTQIA+ relationships -- there are not many other novels out that touch upon the #MeToo movement and how it relates to the gay community. I appreciated that. I also appreciated the exploration, while short and incomplete, of how trauma and abuse affects the survivor.

Due to the choppy nature of the last 20% of the book, I am unable to rate it higher than 3 stars. If the book ended at 80% when Jonah is "freed" of his emotional turmoil, the book would have received a 5 star rating from me.

Despite my just OK rating, I would still recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about a dark, yet realistic thriller involving horrific trauma and what that does to a person.

I am looking forward to reading what Jonathan Parks-Ramage releases next. He is definitely an author to watch out for.

Thank you NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book compelling and also very disturbing. It is graphic in its depictions of physical and sexual violence, and not suitable for anyone who would be traumatized or re-traumatized by that. That said, it was a fascinating glimpse into a world I don't know much about, and exposed the hidden struggles of gay men and the power dynamics that exist within that community. I felt compelled to finish, and found the narrator's character development and story arc to be believable and memorable.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book when it was recommended to me as a story that is similar to "My Dark Vanessa". In a way, it is, and "Yes Daddy" got me hooked from the very first page.
It's the story of young ambitious but financially poor Jonah who aspires to be a playwright but has to settle for being a waiter for now. Until he learns of famous playwright Richard Shriver, twice his age, incredibly successful, very obviously interested in young pretty guys. So he decides to become the new young pretty guy at his side, and he suceeds too.

But this is not simply the story of a young guy dating an older man in order to become successful - Jonah is no Maurice Swift. There is a lot more to him and his desire to be with Richard, and the book dives deep into these issues: Religion, conversion therapy, troubles with his father, a deeply instilled shame of who he is paired with a hunger to love and be loved. Jonah is a traumatised young man even if he doesn't really understand it for a long time, and the trauma of his past in addition to the constant loneliness he feels makes him vulnerable.
This vulnerability is then abused by much older, much more experienced Richard in all the worst ways. The emotional and sexual abuse Jonah is put through by the man he thinks he loves, and the creepy friends of said man too, is tough to read and I had to put down the book multiple times. It's heartbreaking and written in a very graphic way. I admit that at some points I thought the plot to be too gruesome, too horrible to be realistic anymore - but then I remembered that yes, our world can be just as cruel.
The aftermath of the abuse is just as heartbreaking, and "Yes, Daddy" - so much can be said without giving away too much - is not a story that ends with a happily-ever-after for anyone involved. Which makes it all the more realistic.

"Yes, Daddy" has flaws, too, it is not a perfect book. The writing did remind me of smutty fanfiction at times, especially during the sex scenes (though that is not a flaw in itself, it simply didn't entirely fit the rest of the writing). Richard and his friends are often times portrayed in a very "story-book villain" kind of way which made them seem less realistic and thus influenced the emotional impact they had on me. Jonah's characterization was a little inconsistent at times, too. And there are some plot points that I feel were entirely unnecessary and were only in the book for their shock value (without giving away spoilers: that one Matt scene really threw me off because it didn't make sense in the story and seemed to have no value beyond "shocking! more suffering!"). And the book wants to say a lot about very different, very important topics: It deals with homosexuality and religion, it deals with (internalized) homophobia and self-acceptance, it deals with rape and abuse, it deals with trauma and pain and regret, it deals with the "Me Too"-movement and social media, it deals, to a lesser degree, with the criminal justice system when it comes to dealing with rapists in court. That is a lot and I'm not sure if I would have preferred the story to focus on one or two of these subjects instead of spreading out so much.

Still, this is a dark, disturbing, depressing, yet also powerful and raw and important story that I hope a lot of people will read despite the title that might make it look like a different kind of book to some.

This debut novel packs a punch of emotion from beginning to end! The level of disfunction, violence, and abuse in between these pages and between the characters is depressingly unsettling, but it kept me on the edge of my seat whilst my mouth hung open and my eyes bulged in shock. The psychological examination and dysfunction of these queer characters made me sad so I hope this account is purely fiction and not at all taken from experience. A truly unique debut that I will not soon forget.

I'm going to give this one a solid 3.5 out of 5.

To be honest, it was feeling more like a 4 star book until the last 20% or so. Be warned - while 'Yes, Daddy' is a quick read, it is not an easy one. It deals with a lot of heavy, intense, and painful subjects such as homophobia, rape, and suicide.

Jonah is a complicated mess of a character but that's what made him so interesting to me. He wasn't flawless. More often than not I wanted to reach into the book, take him by the shoulders, and just shake him. But, I couldn't help but want him to finally get on his own two feet and be happy. He wasn't likable for most of the book, but I still wanted him to finally accept himself and grow.

However, the ending felt a little off to me. I couldn't really... tell if religion actually helped him in the end. Especially in regards to a certain character but I don't want to spoil anything so I won't name names. I think, after everything, the ending just left me feeling underwhelmed. Still, it's a promising debut and I would definitely read more by the author.

I was really excited to read this novel, especially given the many positive reviews I'd seen of it lately, but unfortunately it didn't end up working for me. The issues with this novel are apparent from the beginning. I found the protagonist motives to be too on-the-nose and too clear-cut for them to be interesting. I also found the writing too straightforward and plain, which doesn't work for me as I tend to prefer a more lyrical or descriptive style. Finally, I just didn't believe in the main character's decisions or follow his decision-making. I think this novel would've benefitted from being more less direct about its characters' motives, and trusting the reader more to figure those out for themselves.