A Review of A.K.Rose: 'Slightly Addictive'

Two of the things that prevent me from having more experiences in common with you, my readers, are smoking, a habit which doesn't spare anyone, and alcohol, which spares very few :(

I suppose many of you know multitudes of friends who drink and / or smoke, and you wonder what the big fuss is.  I, in contrast, have never smoked, and drink only very sparingly.  I cannot give you too many details about the drinking and smoking genes that have come to me through genetics for fear of compromising my state of being incognito, but let me reassure you: the story is dismal.  Many of my friends are recovering, and recovered, addicts, who have parents and family who have battled various sorts of addiction, some with success, and others with less success; and many of us have friends who are still battling addiction, and we just don't know how to deal with those situations.  In theory, there are experts who say that they know exactly how to deal with addicted---and partially addicted---friends.  In practice, though, these experts have no clue, or only minute clues.  So, that's the background of my review of A.K.Rose's Slightly Addictive.  In case you were wondering, there is no tried and true advice to authors, either, about how to go about writing a book about addiction, that an addict would find helpful.

Slightly Addictive

Slightly Addictive, by A. K. Rose, is a thoroughly enjoyable read, especially for those who would recognize themselves, or a friend or lover, in any of the main protagonists: Gia, Roxy, and even Jennifer.  It's a little intimidating to review such an unassuming book, but which is potentially bound for great things.

Though the typical reader might not be looking for 'a slice of life' story--and I wasn't--this relentlessly upbeat book just brims with optimism, and follows the bootstrapping adventures of a woman whom life has 'kicked to the kerb,' and has simply decided to turn over a new leaf.  In Gia, the author has invented a unique hero; at once both simple and outgoing, and also focused and stern.  In Roxi, Gia has the perfect foil, but of course she doesn't know this; Gia has climbed up the wrong palm tree* once too often to take chances.  And (from where Gia sits) what does Roxi have going for her?  She's just cute, and a tease.  And constantly tosses Spanish phrases at Gia, which alternates between being hilarious and annoying!  Luckily, Roxi's sterling qualities are gradually revealed.

Being an author, I must say 'Slightly' is a story I wish I had written myself!  But I could never have done it; I just don't have the background.  Gia is a great invention, and little details reveal how carefully Gia's character has been put together.  For instance, Gia has a dictum: Three strikes, and you're out.  What kind of person has to lean on a principle like that?  One who blames her failures on her tendency to be too helpful, and too forgiving.  We wonder what Roxi sees in Gia, beyond their chemistry.  Perhaps chemistry is all one needs, in the end--NOT!

Two thumbs up, and I wish I had more thumbs!  Note: an all-new HEA is reportedly in the works.

*The story is set in Palm Springs, California.

Obviously, that's not all I have to say, given that I don't want to scare off any potential readers.  Most Lesfic readers don't want to read about anything except flirting, and gentle hands moving down to hips.  The author does her best to accommodate readers of that description, but she can only go so far; there are regular scenes with AA meetings, and Gia and Roxi longing for a drink, or longing to jump into bed.  Very few lesbian romances are set in apartments that are, let's say, very sparsely furnished.  (Most of the movies we see, either in theatres or on TV, have fabulous houses, or even apartments, where even the toilets have gold fittings.)  This is a very down-to-earth story, except for the fact that Gia is such a lovable, decent character.  I can only hope that that doesn't throw off anyone from reading the story.

Early in the opening chapter, it is revealed that Gia took up drinking to wean herself away from smoking, and sex to wean her away from drinking; basically a stack of addictions built on the lines of the House that Jack Built.  (That's an old allusion based on a pre-19th century nursery rhyme.)  The fact remains that often this sort of chain of dependencies really happens to people.

The conventional wisdom about socializing is that you have to drink, in order to dance.  This probably explains why I don't know how to dance <sad face>.  I can waltz, though, without drinking.

So, go out and read this book; it's priced very reasonably, and I hope it doesn't begin to sell so well that either the author or Amazon decide to raise the price!!

Kay

[Added later:] If any one of my readers has a parent or relative who drinks so much that you can't tell that they've drunk at all: avoid drinking at all.  Some people have a metabolic system that warns them in good time, each occasion, that it's time to stop drinking.  Other people don't have this; they can continue to drink without any apparent ill effects, each and every day, until they can no longer function without some alcohol in their systems.  This means that they'll eventually destroy their livers, which is a painfun condition.  Read up about it, because I'm certainly not an expert.  But one of my closest friends--a guy; incidentally, the one who got me into writing seriously--used to drink this way.  He's dead, now, in his seventies.  He didn't die of cirrhosis, but I wonder whether his alcoholism affected his neurological functions in ways that we could not see.

Kay

Cosplay?

Deviant Art is my only window into this popular form of self-expression.  Normally, we don't examine the reasons as why an author gets started writing fictions, let's say, until and unless, they become well known.  In the case of Cosplay, though, I want to know.  Every day, numerous girls get dressed up as various characters from the movies, or Manga, or Anime, and get themselves photographed, and publish the images on DA.  If you look on the DA page of each of these people (incidentally, the girls heavily outnumber the guys, for some reason, probably financial), you see that the photograph actually published in the main DA page is just one of those that the cosplay artist has uploaded to her own page.

So these cosplayers spend enormous amounts of time, sewing their costumes, and a lot of money, paying for skilful makeup artists and photographers, and sometimes graphic designers, to fit them into a scene from some piece of theatre or movies.

In some cases there is a definite element of self-indulgence; some cosplayers identify so much with some character from, say, The Witcher, that they pose for more than a dozen photos as that character.

The occupation of being a model---a fashion model, or an artist's model---is definitely one that is an allied art; but a girl without exceptional beauty seldom tries to model.  In the case of Cosplay, though, this factor is no hindrance; it is sort of the equivalent of vanity publishing.  (I shudder to cast the first stone since I am published on Smashwords, and can be accused of the same crime.)

I'm typing this up on my phone, so will continue the post later ...

A Review of Malinda Lo's: Last Night at the Telegraph Club

I seldom read stories that are what I would call heavy---after all, what does heavy even mean?  If you know, then you don't need a definition.  But if you want to use the term precisely, you need a definition.

Yesterday, I finished reading Malinda Lo's celebrated novel: Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a complex story about a teenage Chinese girl growing up in San Francisco.  I didn't call it a coming-of-age story, because on one hand, it tells you a lot about the story, but it also cues in lots of prejudices on the part of the reader, that might not help my review, because the idea of prejudice, and even racism, is so central to this story.  Even those who are sick and tired of prejudice and racism will take something good away from this story, because viewed from where we are today (the spring of 2022), it is so wonderful to take stock of how far we have come, and to brace ourselves to ponder how far we have yet to go.

The main protagonist is a child of Chinese immigrants, a father from Shanghai, and a mother from somewhere else in China, Christians both, who have met in San Francisco, married, and had three children, the eldest of whom is Lily (Li-Li, in Chinese).  Unlike her stereotypical fellow Chinese girl classmates, Lily is fascinated by space travel, and to this end, she is avidly reading up on Arthur C. Clarke's The Exploration of Space, one of his earliest non-fiction works.

When Lily meets an American classmate, Kathleen, who isn't scornful of Lily's fascination with space, and who herself is eager to become a pilot, the two girls form a bond based on their common interests.  Very soon, the girls discover that their mutual attraction goes beyond mere platonic interests, and they realize---separately---that they are sexually attracted to each other.

Very realistically---remember, this is the 1950's, when homosexual activity was still illegal---the girls do not express their feelings to each other.  They even sneak into a lesbian bar (The Telegraph Club) together, under the benign eye of a friendly doorkeeper, to listen to a sexy male impersonator (a woman who dresses like a man, and sings torch songs to the other women in the audience).  Male impersonators were all the rage back in that era.

The first person story reveals a great deal about the thoughts of Lily, whereas we have to see Kathleen's feelings only through the mind of Lily, and so we aren't aware that Kathleen has been attracted to Lily for two years.

I can only say that my own heart was wracked with sympathy for the young couple; who knows how anyone else would respond to the same story?  There are a couple of friendly adults, who help the girls---or at least, Lily---deal with the dramatic upheaval of the last few months in the story, among them Aunt Judy, Lily's father's sister; and a progressive teacher at their school.  Malinda L. draws a pretty detailed picture of what Lily's life is like, and her family, which---though not typical of Chinese life at that time, is at least generally representative---and Ms. Lo is at pains, throughout, to give historical background, in the guise of establishing the chronology of Lily's family's life events.  There is a little skipping backwards and forwards in time, exploring the events surrounding the meeting of Lily's parents, which explains their ambitions, and the degree to which they feel betrayed when various horrific things happen to the family, through US government retribution for not cooperating with espionage against their fellow immigrants, who are suspected of being communist sympathizers.

The mix of sexual repression, anti-communist paranoia, gender conformity, distaste for hard science, the intense American patriotism of immigrants, police brutality, and similar forces make this story difficult to palate, but not impossible.  In contrast to what we expect in intelligent and strong-minded protagonists, in our times, Lily is painfully submissive to her family's unreasonable demands, especially those of her mother.  The use of alcohol and cigarettes to handle apprehension and fear is a constant motif.

Malinda Lo has delivered a complex (did I mention that already?) multi-faceted story, which is almost more than a sensitive soul can handle.  The book has won several awards, and one can appreciate why.  Highly recommended.

Kay