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"Hawaii Vacation" by Jemma (love on the beach) 7.5
"Hawaii Vacation" by Jemma (jemma@mail.on.rogers.wave.ca). Guest review by Dave Myers. This is the second story I've read by this author, and she has great potential in a genre that I can only describe as "erotica verite". Her style is mf rom with first person narrative in present tense ("You are touching me gently", "I am moaning softly", etc). These are stories with enough brush strokes to seem true, enough character development to seem realistic, and at the same time, clearly fictional. Thus, "erotica verite". Synopsis: A couple make love in beach settings. This is hazy lazy lovemaking, the kind where the sensations conveyed are not just of the chemical/hormonal kind, but of human emotion. The action unfolds at the leisurely pace of two people sensuously exploring each other romantically. But the story is marred by two distractions. First is the absence of apostrophes from the text. The other problem is more subtle. In trying to capture the elements of sensuality and realism that come from non-sexual events in the story, the author dips once or twice a little too far into the mundane details of the surroundings (most notably a passage about a military base which doesn't quite click). The effect is that as if one of the characters in "Casablanca" stopped to balance their checkbook in the middle of a scene. There are other times, though, where the author adds greatly to the plot with well crafted inter-coital descriptions of the setting. Example: "The sun is a huge red ball, and seems to take forever to fall behind the horizon. This is the same sun I see every day, the same sun I see set on Lake Huron, and yet here it looks so different." The next Updike? Maybe not, but I would say that Jemma is on to something, stylewise. I hope to see more of her work. Rating: 7.5 |