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From: Peaches and Cream  <peachescreamreviews@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} Peaches and Cream Reviews: #29
Date: Sun,  1 Sep 2002 09:10:03 -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: #29

Genuine love will always feel urged to communicate joy--to be a
joy-giver. Mankind needs joy.
-Lawrence G. Lovasik (The Hidden Power of Kindness)

Stories to be reviewed:

Phoenix by Artie
Remembering Saigon in the Summer of '68 by Gilgrim
The Plan by Wandering Lanes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenix by Artie
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/artie/www/phoenix.html

***

Cream:

Tom and Vicky's house, along with most of their belongings, has just
been destroyed by a forest fire, and they're going to have to start
over.  This story tells how they start starting over.  Sex seems as
good a way to do it as any.  Loving sex.  They're staying at some
friends' house, but the friends are out grocery shopping, and now
seems like as good a time as any.

This is a gentle portrait of two seemingly pretty nice people dealing
with and recovering from adversity. I like the sex scene. It seems
honest and intimate and hopeful.  The whole story seems honest, for
that matter, but I'm not so enamored with the structure.  The set up
is a little long and slow. In some ways this seems like just a day in
the life.  Someone turned on the camera and left it running.  I like
the gentleness but I want either more or more economy. The power of
the story either gets lost or it never gets started.  Or maybe I'm
missing something, Peaches?

2.75 kisses

***

Peaches:

Phoenix: rising up from the ashes. The title works nicely.

The sex scene is gentle and loving and gives us a little something to
sink our teeth into. But I think what's missing in the rest of the
story are details. We're told they've lost nearly everything and
they're starting over. But what did they lose? Maybe the couch that
Vicky reupholstered  on her own after an amorous night had left a
stain. Or a garden they'd spent the entire spring cultivating. What's
along the wall in the basement that may be saved? Pictures? Linens?
Old shoes?

We almost get there when Tom is in the bathroom and sees his electric
razor they managed to save. But then the story quickly returns to just
telling us they've lost nearly everything yet again.

The story depends on drawing in the emotions of the reader to really
work. With a few details, the reader would try to understand what it
would be like to lose that couch, or see that garden go up in smoke,
and really *feel* that loss.

3 kisses

***

Cream:

I've heard that asked what they'd rescue from a fire (after children
and pets), most people answer "photographs." One other thing that
might have helped this story would have been to make the couple older.
How much stake did they really have in that house?    Sure, it was
their home, but it wasn't where they raised children. That they don't
rescue any photographs but go for the contents of the medicine chest
sends me the message that these people haven't really lost much of
anything. 

>His mind was still racing, wishing he'd taken the digital 
>camera with him or the videocamera 

What about their wedding album?  What about the stuffed bear she'd had
since she was two? Or the pancake place placemat where he drew a stick
figure saying, "I love you, will you marry me?" after they'd spent
their first night together? That this couple's interest is in saving
equipment and medicine sends a strange message about these people. 

***

Peaches: 3 kisses
Cream: 2.75 kisses
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remembering Saigon in the Summer of '68 by Gilgrim
(FF, rom)
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36971

***

Peaches:

A woman is traveling with her companion/lover and they stop for gas.
The companion leaves to go inside the station. The woman begins to
pump gas, and she suddenly remembers her stint in Saigon as part of
the Army Nurse Corps, and a lesbian relationship that had promise.

Smells can be a huge trigger in evoking memories. It happens all the
time, sometimes even on a subconscious level. This really works in
this story. I like the realism of having a memory and being
uncomfortable to share that memory with someone in your life today.
Maybe not because of jealousy, but because of wanting to hold on to
the event, untouched.

The remembering in this story is told concisely and with a flair of
reality. It doesn't go on too long, but I think we could have extended
out an actual sex scene, or a little more intimacy to show why this
memory is so special.

4 kisses

***

Cream:

The style with which the narrator tells the inner story here has some
advantages--the main one is credibility. Everything seems utterly
genuine.   It also has some disadvantages--we don't quite get into the
moments the narrator remembers.  For one thing there's too much
distracting incidental information.  This helps with the credibility
and it gives us an historical perspective and a floorplan and so on,
but it doesn't really get us into the heart of those memories.  All
that explanation is too dry and distant.  

>To avoid detection, we would meet after work at the fuel 
>point and go back to my quarters for some of the wettest sex 
>that I have ever had. There is something very beautiful about 
>a woman in uniform who knows what she wants and 
>isn't afraid to go after it. I leaned against the car with my 
>eyes closed and my mind awash with memories 
>when Cynthia returned.

This is the moment we need that extended sex scene, or at least the
beginning of it. I think it's important for the narrator to put the
reader right there in the juicy heart and heat of the memory.

In contrast, the slim outer frame of the story is perfect in its
immediacy.

3.9 kisses

***

Peaches:

Yes, Cream, if a story is told too distantly, then it's difficult for
a reader to share in the intimacy that the story is really trying to
tell. This story could have really been juicy with the clandestine
type of meetings the two women would have had to maneuver. Even
showing just one of those secret meetings might have been enough.

***

Peaches: 4 kisses
Cream: 3.9 kisses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Plan by Wandering Lanes
(MF Rom)
http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/36983

***

Cream:

Years ago his wife and son were killed in an accident. He and his
young daughter, Cathy, are left to cope on their own.  Cathy is twelve
now, and she thinks it's time for Dad to start dating, so she enrolls
him in a computer dating service.  The night of this story he meets
his date, Sandra, who is divorced and has a son, Chris, about the same
age as Cathy.  The couple have a nice dinner, and then they go back to
his place for a nightcap. They hit it off just fine.  About to have
sex, she says:

>"I can't, not today, it's the wrong time." At the look on her face 
>she then said, "But Chris did give me some condoms just in case" 
>she smiled, "I think he suspected something might happen." 
>She reached into her bag and pulled out several packets, 
>which he undid and quickly wrapped around his throbbing 
>member, she reached up to him and pulled him down and into her.

Kids these days, giving their parents condoms!  I guess it's possible.
Credibility is not the biggest deterrent to my enjoyment of this
story; the pace is a little too slow. Maybe it's that we're given a
few too many of the wrong kind of details.  Early in the story, for
example, we get two paragraphs about his wife Rachael and their life
together all the way back to high school--but Rachael isn't really
even a character in the story. My pleasure is further diminished by
quite a bit of sloppy writing here and there.  Still the characters
and plot come through okay, and many of the details are nice.  If you
give this story a chance, I think there's a good chance you'll enjoy
it.

2.75 kisses

***

Peaches:

I felt the same surprise as you, Cream, at the twelve-year-old son
giving his mother condoms. Wouldn't she wonder where he got them? If
he were using them? Questions like these pull attention away from the
story. And there are other places that do it as well:

>It was the happiest time of his life, as well as Cathy's...

Wouldn't there have been happier times when his wife and son were
still alive?

Consider this paragraph:

>He opened the door and warning Sandra to be quiet, as Cathy
>was still at home, although when she heard them arrive she
>quickly ran upstairs to be in bed, pretending to be asleep,
>He looked into her bedroom, just to make sure, 
>he called out to her, but she didn't reply, he crept out 
>silently closing the door, and returned downstairs 
>to the living room.

There's a POV shift. The "she" in "she heard them arrive" is
ambiguous. And it ends with a run on sentence. Paragraphs like this
take my mind away from the story.

But I like the story. I like the little twist at the end. And I liked
that the author allowed the father to see a familiarity in his
date--Sandra-- but didn't cheat and say it was because Sandra reminded
him of his dead wife.

I'd be giving this story one full kiss more if it had been edited.
This story is asking for an editor. It's too nice of a tale not to
give it one. 

2.8 kisses

***

Cream:

Despite quite a few serious flaws in "The Plan," we both seem to be
rooting for this story. That must show that the author did something
right.  I'm not sure that an editor would solve all the problems, but
I agree that an editor would be an excellent next step.

***

Peaches: 2.8 kisses
Cream: 2.75 kisses

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