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Message-ID: <37989asstr$1030137006@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Peaches and Cream  <peachescreamreviews@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} Peaches and Cream Reviews: #22
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 17:10:06 -0400
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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're changing our format to include more than one story per
issue. 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: #22

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
--Andrew Marvell (1621-78), English metaphysical poet. To His Coy
Mistress

Stories to be reviewed:

Romance by Mat Twassel
Song Of Ourselves by PleaseCain
Summer of '67 by J Penguin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Romance by Mat Twassel
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36990

***

Peaches:

A college guy is devastated by the tragic loss of his girlfriend. He
has issues about her loss that stand in his way of moving on; possibly
one of the same issues that many who has lost a love one has--why
couldn't he save her?

This story is expertly told. It has moments of sweetness and sexy
secrets.

>Jenny's cautious finger tests an inner slope of secret skin.

>...and most of all that scant slip of space between her upper thighs...
>David chanted to himself as a fresh surge of lake water flowed between 
>her legs flooding the special place.

Attention to detail like this makes the story all the more vivid and
enjoyable.

There's some fuzziness near the end where David is apparently
dreaming, but maybe the fuzziness works in context. I think I would
have rather been more sure if it was a real incident or just his
dream.

There's also some name confusion. There's a Jenny, a Steffie, and at
one point the name Ginnie pops up.

But all in all, it's a sweetly romantic story and the author's
explanation at the end of the story on how the story came about makes
it even more so.

4.7 kisses

***

Cream

This seems like a very ambitious story--so much detail, it makes it a
little hard to wade through, especially since there's really not much
sex. No place to rest or relax.  Maybe at the end when he's dreaming
... or not dreaming.  The mood or pace or something in the story does
seem to become slow and dreamy there even though it's mostly dialogue
and straightforward--maybe it's the contrast to earlier parts of the
story; anyway I don't see anything which makes me think the end is
really a dream, so I think I'll assume that it isn't.  I guess I have
mixed feelings about this story.  Maybe I'll have to read it again. My
first impression is it tries to do too much. There are lots of things
in it I like, but I think it would be better if it were simpler.

3.75 kisses

***

Peaches:

I certainly disagree with you about the detail. I don't feel like I'm
wading through, I feel like I'm walking though real life. Details are
what make a specific moment memorable. And the details here are simple
things. I do think the story attempts a lot with the
senses--especially hearing, and there is some symbolism that might not
be caught on first reading--the banana, for instance, but these all
make you think. A story that makes you think long after you've read
it, has served a great purpose.

***

Peaches: 4.7 kisses
Cream: 3.75 kisses
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song Of Ourselves by PleaseCain
(rom MF spanking)
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36976

***

Cream:

She's an actress, he's a plumber, they're a couple; but then he gets
MS, becomes bedridden, almost paralyzed, and they're still a couple.
Only now she goes out, at his insistence, and he stays home pretending
to read his Whitman, and when the cramps come he sings Clash songs
while waiting for them to unlock, while waiting to hear her key.  This
is a poignant and sensuous adventure, and it has one of the best
descriptions of loving sexual spanking I've ever read.

So why is she still with him?  Is it pity, duty, devotion, or love?
The answer, ironic and not, might be in the poem she reads to him at
the end:

>I celebrate myself,
>And what I assume you shall assume,
>For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

This romance is at once intellectual and corporeal and beautiful.

4.8 kisses

***

Peaches:

This story achieves about as much as any story can. The sex is hot,
steamy & loving. The story and plot are engaging. And it has a
bittersweet quality that negates any chance of sappiness.

There are wonderful images:

>the closet pull cord snicker-snackering

>his muscles scrimmaged against each other

And the dialogue is smart, witty and natural. As I said the sex is
steamy, but people will just have to read that for themselves.

4.9 kisses

***

Cream:

I don't have anything to add, Peaches, except I wouldn't mind having
someone special read this story to me.  Good fiction, good sex
fiction, need not be a solitary adventure!  Lots of these rom fest
stories, even the darker ones, would be perfect for cheap dates--just
curl up on the couch with your sweetheart (or sweetheart-to-be) and
read. (Clash song on the stereo optional, I guess.)

***

Peaches: 4.9 kisses
Cream: 4.8 kisses
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summer of '67 by J Penguin
(MF, Rom)
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36979

***

Peaches:

A man released from the army in 1967 meets a "hippy chick" named,
Ruby. They do the sixties scene that is forever engraved in our
minds--Free Love, Dope, and Rock-n-Roll. 

I like the voice. Jimmy McNeil is an interesting guy. He has his own
take on the events of the time, and the story is good as far as it
goes. But it feels like something is missing. It needs a scene that
sets up the ending better, or it shouldn't end where it does. Ruby is
too important to the story to gloss over her like the story does.

Jimmy tells us a lot of things, but doesn't really show us anything. A
little more interaction between the characters would spice this up a
lot. 

And yet, it has that nostalgia air about it that makes you want to
crank up the Hendrix or the Joplin, and pull out your Peter Maxx
posters.

3.0 kisses

***

Cream:

I don't think we learn nearly enough about Ruby. And there are very
few detailed scenes or immediate moments, especially after sex scene
in the middle. I suppose that was the high point. In a way the
rendition is appropriate--a couple meandering through the summer, not
really killing time, but not quite "there," and then it's over.  But
as a story it really isn't very satisfying.  If nothing else, I want
to know why the narrator is telling us this.  I think this story needs
a different shape, maybe it needs to be told backwards or inside
out--back and front both getting to the middle, that first night of
promise and love.

1.5 kisses.

***

Peaches:

The narrator wants to share a summer of his life with us. I want to
listen. But I agree by the end of the telling, I might just say, is
that it? There is no attempt in the story to make Ruby someone so
special in his life that after 30 years he still remembers her. And
yet, he does, so what was it about Ruby that he has never forgotten? 

***

Peaches: 3.0 kisses
Cream: 1.5 kisses

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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