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Rating: 
Summary: Not For Everyone
Review: From the back cover of the book: "Whether you are a novice D/s player or an experienced Master or slave, this insightful and forthright volume will prove to be a great read and a valuable reference guide." NOT.This was a disappointing read, given that it purports to be about creating and living an erotic dominant/submissive lifestyle. It is certainly about how Rinella does/did it, but as he points out again and again throughout the book, all relationships are different, as are the people in them. Anyone who's already started down the path to making their own D/s relationship work won't find much of use here, unless they happen to be very Rinella-like in their views and preferences. We learn an awful lot about Rinella and what he likes, and almost nothing is mentioned about the slave and how he handles being a slave, overcomes challenges, finds satisfaction in his choices, etc. Shouldn't a book called "The Compleat Slave" be about *slaves*? As a guide for newbies to coming out into the leather scene, it's probably pretty good, but that's not what the book is supposed to be about, according to the title and jacket blurb. There is no soul to this writing; if you're actually interested in living the slave lifestyle, you won't find much of use here. Rinella does say that to be a good slave you must be obedient and worshipful, but then gets bogged down in details of how to use personal ads and leather bars to find a partner, how to negotiate scenes, how to [satisfy], etc. All good information for some people, but not what I was expecting when I bought the book...
Rating: 
Summary: Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive Lifestyle
Review: The subtitle says it all: "Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive Lifestyle" The book takes the reader through practical steps and gives experience-based examples. Chapter 10, "How to Give Oral-Genital Pleasure" by itself is worth the cost of the whole book! It describes in the best detail I've ever come across how a person can give oral-genital pleasure. It was really wonderfully sensuous to read. Woof.
Rating:
Summary: Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive Lifestyle
Review: The subtitle says it all: "Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive Lifestyle" The book takes the reader through practical steps and gives experience-based examples. Chapter 10, "How to Give Oral-Genital Pleasure" by itself is worth the cost of the whole book! It describes in the best detail I've ever come across how a person can give oral-genital pleasure. It was really wonderfully sensuous to read. Woof.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There should be more, much much more, material about the sublime nuances of the Master and slave dynamic than what there is presented in this work. Instead the author provides the audience with material that can be easily found at any community mental health organization that sponsors courses on intimate relationships. Instead of reading about these issues it would be time better served to attend community mental health establishments to get the hands on assistance about intimate relationships -- at least there would be one on one help with the issues this author writes about. There is little to no real application much needed for the subtleties of the Master and slave dynamic. Nice try but no cigar. This author doesn't seem to be getting it and to use an old English term to suggest that Compleat is suggestive of possessing awesome insight into this topic is quite misleading to the literary public -- nothing more than a lackluster etymological word-play game. Disappointing is the best term that I can manage to evoke to describe this work but then again what could anyone expect from the author of The Master's Manual (should be entitled A Master's Manual).
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There should be more, much much more, material about the sublime nuances of the Master and slave dynamic than what there is presented in this work. Instead the author provides the audience with material that can be easily found at any community mental health organization that sponsors courses on intimate relationships. Instead of reading about these issues it would be time better served to attend community mental health establishments to get the hands on assistance about intimate relationships -- at least there would be one on one help with the issues this author writes about. There is little to no real application much needed for the subtleties of the Master and slave dynamic. Nice try but no cigar. This author doesn't seem to be getting it and to use an old English term to suggest that Compleat is suggestive of possessing awesome insight into this topic is quite misleading to the literary public -- nothing more than a lackluster etymological word-play game. Disappointing is the best term that I can manage to evoke to describe this work but then again what could anyone expect from the author of The Master's Manual (should be entitled A Master's Manual).
Rating: 
Summary: Its about relationships, not a how-to
Review: This book is somewhere between the slave training guides by "Miss Abernathy" and the idealized multitude of "first-person" stories you can find anywhere. This is not a how-to manual. This is instead a look at relationships and how they might actually work or not work using one man's life as the basis. He covers about every topic I can think of that a gay master-slave couple might encounter but there are no how-to details here as he states in his introduction. Frankly given the personal nature of the book I wish the stories could have continued, often we just see snippets that left me wanting to know more especially on the slave side of the relationship. If you are looking for someone to give you the "one true path/method" look elsewhere. Looking to think more and be reassured that yes, love can equal ownership; this is a good book to start with.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible is an understatement
Review: This jack rinella character not only seems to have limited experience in BDSM, but his writing style and ability is not above fifth-grade level. His paragraphs are one long, "Lost in his own self-importance" sentence. He seems to have no idea how to use punctuation and worse, he has misspelled words throughout his self-aggrandizing, shallow, uninformative, lackluster, run on, two-sentence chapters.
He seems to see himself as some sort of pimp daddy. He might be in his little mind, but he is not someone that should be taken seriously as an author let alone a dominant. Stay clear of his tripe.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read COMPLEAT Guide
Review: You might wonder at first how "The Compleat Slave", in so few pages, can be a comprehensive description of the unique dynamics of Master/slave relationships. But as the note at the beginning of the book says, Jack is using the Old English word "Compleat", which refers to skill and ability of a high order. And that is what he does in this discussion of reality-based Master/slave relationships. So buy this as a practical guide, not a detailed guide. Jack's easy to read, common-sense writing style presents a reality-based perspective on how M/s relationships succeed, and if you look beneath the specific erotically-charge concepts you will see he is simply saying that succeeding as a Master or slave in a relationship requires the same skills that any good relationship requires. You won't find protocols or positions discussed or rules and regulations touted. Instead you will find discussions about sucessful communication, financial considerations, everyday existence and sexual maturity. If you really want to be in a successful Dominant/submissive relationship then this feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground discussion is certainly a must read.
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