index


Message-ID: <37653asstr$1028409004@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Peaches and Cream  <peachescreamreviews@yahoo.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} Peaches and Cream Reviews #3
Date: Sat,  3 Aug 2002 17:10:04 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.stories.d
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

Hi! We're Peaches & Cream. We're just two ordinary Joes who like
reading and romance. Recently, there was a Summer Solstice Romance
Festival on ASSM, and it caught our attention. We started discussing
the stories and our reviews were born. Our format is simple: one of us
starts the review, the other chimes in, and then the starter finishes
it off. Because this is all about romance, we'll be scoring with 0-5
kisses. We'll be posting a review a day until we finish the stories
that were submitted, beginning with the Flash stories.

There is a website devoted to the festival where you can find all the
stories we will review. 

http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Rui_Favorites/www/RomFest

Peaches & Cream Reviews:

"Literature is mostly about sex and not much about having children and
life is the other way around."

--David Lodge 

***

Dessert by Qsilver
(MF, Rom, ml) (Flash)
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36927

***

Cream:

In "Dessert" a couple visit their house-in-progress:

>"Up through here, you can see where the 
>master bath will be, and past that, our 
>bedroom." The skeletal framework, strung 
>with steel nerves and copper veins, 
>suggested the outlines of the home we had 
>dreamed of for so long. 
   
After a picnic lunch on the floor, they get down to dessert--the meat
of the story.  The structure here is simple and sound--a good plan,
but for me the finished product is a little uninspired, predictable,
and bland.  The home becomes after all just a setting for sex, and
what about the neighbors, the construction workers, and the splinters
of unfinished wood? What I'd prefer more than a conflict and more than
mere polish is something special about these people and their
connection.  That said, there is an apt gentleness to the ending, a
kind of cuddly low-key twist, which I liked very much. If the
depiction of sex had been more urgent and compelling, more immediate,
this soft ending would have been a nice contrast.

For romance: two quiet kisses.

***

Peaches:

I imagine anyone that has gone through the headaches of building from
scratch can relate to stealing time when the construction workers
aren't on site. (They don't work weekends, do they?) There's something
exciting about being in the unfinished shell of your
about-to-be-brand-new-home. Sure it's your property, but it still
feels like it belongs to the construction workers. 

It's a creative, romantic image and add things like:

>Her blouse flew onto a roughed-in electrical box and hung
>there...She kicked her skirt and underwear in the corner.

And the scene/setting tips the romantic scale for me. 

Unfortunately, the sex doesn't get the same creative attention and I
miss it.

So thanks to the marvelous visual images of place, I give this story
2.5 kisses for setting and a mere .5 kiss for the sex. Total: 3 kisses

***

Cream:

I certainly agree that the sex section is less exciting than the rest.
I understand what you mean about being in the shell of your house, no
one around, but here we get just the barest glimpse of that and then
on to the sex.  They might as well be on Mars, or back in their old
bedroom. It's a good setting; it could have been used a little better.
Perhaps it's okay that they are oblivious--in a way that's
appropriate--but we shouldn't be. Somehow we need to be reminded of
this setting even during the sex, or at the very least just after.

***

Peaches: 3 kisses
Cream: 2 quiet kisses

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html>  Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}|
|Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org>   Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org>      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+