"Daite."
by Hildred Billings
Pages: 233
Date: September 27 2013
Publisher: Barachou Press
Series: Jiai Jouwa (first in series)

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: May 9 2014 to May 28 2015

Well. This book of only 233 pages took me 385 days to read. Friday, May 9 2014 to May 28 2015. Oh, I can see, on here, wherein I had marked when I had started reading the book for the first time. So, 385 days and 6 minutes. heh. Apparently I began in May at roughly 3:34 pm, ended in May at roughly 3:40. A year and 20 days later. (huh, odd, when I add the time, I lose a day, yet I finished 6 minutes after I started).

That's actually both technically true and technically untrue. I read from 5/9/14 to 5/25/14, paused, then started up again on 5/28/15 and ended same day. Read the first 41% in 2014, and the last 59% today. All because I couldn't stand the main character's actions. heh.

The first part involved Jun's whiny nature, plus exciting stuff with Saya. I said at the time I read part one "not sure how the rest of the book will go, but first 17% was definitely 5 star stuff. I kinda fell into a trance, I did." Then the Jun's whinning got even more on my nerves in part two. And I finally couldn't take it anymore and stopped. I read part 3 and 4 today (or however many parts come after the second part). Part 3 made me think Jun was a whiny nasty bitch who could think of nothing but sex, drinking, how to get ahead at her job (or, specificially, get named to inherit the chairman's role), and how she wished she could be in a relationship.

At some point in part 3, then throughout the rest of the book, I relearned Jun and her character and was able to better able to take her. I'd say that the year long gap allowed me to come back, vaguely remember what came before, then restart at the worst possible moment. Where Jun is at her worst. Character wise. Except I have notes about how her whinning was driving me up the wall, and how that was why I had a year long break. So . . at this point . . . meh.

Interesting read on several levels. Including reading a book set in Japan, plus a little something about the lesbian culture there. After that long break, there's no way I could recommend or not recommend the book. I'm not really in any position, now, to do so. I would note, though, that, as the book progressed through part four and the ending, I was beginning to think about how I might read the second book in the series.

I made some comment in my status updates about how I wouldn't wish to have anything to do with Jun, as a relative, as a friend, or as a lover because of how much of a whiny nasty bitch she was. That was a dumbfounded opinion of mine. Spur of the moment. Mostly based on part 3. In the end, I think I actually kind of like Jun.

I feel like I'm on a yo-yo, a pendulum, my thoughts and feelings being yanked around. Like how Jun was yanked around by Saya. We eventually learn why Jun was being yanked around, but, in the moment, Saya was quite annoying.

Suki yo

The Student, The Rogue & The Catburglar
by Laura Gibson
Pages: 290
Date: August 26 2012
Publisher: Author
Series: Sophie Aughton's Diary (first in series)

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: April 17 to May 27 2015

hmm. Another one of those "I've no bloody clue what to put in here" type of . . um . . comments.

I've no real clue what I just read. Over one or more months. I read it because I'd been intrigued by seeing some stuff Laura Gibson had put up on DeviantArt. Roughly similar to this here book. Pictures with captions, though. I mention only to note that I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into when I started . . . and I'm still not really sure.

Apparently this is the "diary" of one "Sophie Aughton". I do not know the school system in England, but I believe she starts the book as a freshman in college. Or the equivalent. Other than every once in a while remembering to actually attend classes and study (actually, I think she did attend and study, she just was late a lot; and fell back on prior learning in moments when she was called upon to explain an assignment that she forgot to do, but had knowledge about from whatever comes before college in England). That was a completely messed up sentence. hmms. Other than attending classes, Sophie attended several clubs, specifically the Live Action Role Playing club, and the karate club. In addition she spent lots and lots of time in an online virtual world.

A shy woman at the start of the book. And mostly at the end. Though by the end she's just embarrased as she does stuff she would have been too shy to do at the beginning of the book. hmms. Is that a spoiler? I keep distracting myself. As I ramble. As the book unfolds Sophie plays at bondage games inside the virtual world, and real life bondage games by herself and with her roommate.

bah. I've no real idea what to put here for this book and instead of anything coherent, I have this. The book took me a lot longer than normal for me to complete. There's a definite beginning middle and . . . well, the end ended with one of those *stares at computer screen, squeaks "that's !"*. To a certain extent there were way too many characters. Especially since so many of them were more than just ciphers. Trying to keep track of them all was hard. In terms of the erotic nature of the book . . . - well, some was exciting, some was . . .well, it was mostly exciting.

Oh, the virtual world. I wanted to get back to that. The action in the virtual world and during the the role playing events were shown . . . . as if they were happening . . um . . .. Hmms. Let me try it this way. Sophie would log into the virtual world as Feline. As Feline, she did stuff. And reacted in a manner as if the action was occurring in real life. Instead of in a virtual reality. Like, Feline ended up exposed a few times, Sophie, controlling the avatar called Feline, became quite embarrased as she was exposed. So, an emotional connection. Another example, as Feline, Sophie did such things as get involved in hogtied races, dance on stripper poles, etc. All described as if she was actually doing them. And feeling them. And being embarrased by them. I'm probably not explaining this well. By "actually doing them" - obviously the avatar is "doing" something when the real life person controlling the avatar does it. What I meant by "actually doing them" can be best seen when Feline was on the stripper pole. Dancing. Getting tips. The person giving the tip made some kind of comment. Feline's dance routine was disrupted by her embarassment. Which . . . isn't what would happen in a virtual world. Well, a 3D virtual world. In a 3D virtual world the dance is preprogramed. The real life person clicks something, the avatar dances - the most that can be seen as controlling the dance is the ability to start, stop, change to a different dance. But the dance is preprogrammed. It's not going to morph, improve, degrade, based on the avatar. If it's a text virtual world, everything that happened would be whatever you typed. bah.

No matter. I've gone and confused myself. And anyone brave enough to reach this point in the review. So . . I'll just skip off to the side now and . . um . . stop typing.

ETA: I was going to make some comment on the virtual world in terms of - which virtual worlds might have been the basis for the one in the book? But, didn't.

The image below is of one of the characters, Sophie I assume, wearing the bunny suit. Well, Sophie wears a bunny suit in the book.

Image from DeviatArt

Sandra Smiles by B.J. Slippy

Sandra Smiles
by B.J. Slippy
Pages: 20
Date: March 10 2014
Publisher: Author

Review
Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0
Read: May 25 2015


First half (or maybe 40%) was kind of slow. Getting a rough vague idea of the main character. And first date that just involved meeting in a park. Then things picked up. Erotica-wise. hmms. Picked up in terms of eroticism.

Ah. Good. Drama. See, this is like a typical romantic comedy movie. Must add weird tension in the form of misunderstandings and slightly wrong word choices. I'm being slightly sacastic if that isn't clear.

In this case, after "going down" (no idea why I'm putting quotes on that), the blind woman tells the fat one that she doesn't have to go down on her. The fat one (what, the fat one's size, and the blind one's blindness are important to the story . . . fine) . . .. After Sandra goes down on Missy, pushes her to climax, she adjusts herself and sits on the sofa next to her. Causally commenting that Missy didn't need to return the favor. She just wanted to make sure that . . . right, I didn't really get it, but meh. She wanted to make sure her guest had fun with the blind women, basically. Missy misinterpreted that to mean tat Sandra was pitying her for being fat. Or something. And storms out. See, tension and drama.

Cute story. The overall story was interesting. The graphic sections read a little mechanically. Just a little. At times. At other times not.

Ended a little . . . well, not abruptly. hmms. Ended quickly? Bah. It was a short story. It had a discernable beginning, middle, and a . . . um, something of an ending. I suppose it says something that I want to know more. To follow more of their story. I suspect that isn't going to happen. Oh well.

Taken By The Babysitter by J. O'Brien

Taken By The Babysitter
by J. O'Brien
Pages: 16
Date: December 18 2014
Publisher: Author

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: May 24 2015

It's somewhat offputting and annoying when there are mistakes immediately spotted. But, meh, it's at the beginning so I'll ignore and press on. (I assume that the second sentence is supposed to be "It figures." and not "I figures.", but, eh, perhaps it's supposed to be I Figures.).

eww. The babysitter stopped by. Spots a vibrator. Immediately puts it into her body. Um . . . eww.

And then my brain kind of went all hazy on me so if there are more "errors", I wasn't in a position to see them. To comprehend them. hmms.

Secret Sorority by J. O'Brien

Secret Sorority
by J. O'Brien
Pages: 14
Date: December 15 2014
Publisher: Author

Review
Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Read: May 24 2015

Wasn't sure if I wanted to read this specific story, but it's the first in the "series" that contained the short story I just read so . . .. Figure I'd give this one a try.

A young woman is driven by her friend to an initiation to a secret sorority. She's barely dressed, wearing tiny skirt, barely there top. Doesn't know what to expect.

As fantasy, a quite exciting story. I'm not going to think of the real life issues I might have with the situation.

Slightly less exciting than the first O'Brien story I read.

Miss Midnight Versus the Diabolical League of Perverts by Amanda Clover

Miss Midnight Versus the Diabolical League of Perverts
by Amanda Clover
Pages: 53
Date: June 1 2014
Publisher: Author
Series: Metro City Heroines

Review
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.0
Read: May 22 2015

Gah. A superhero who becomes aroused when she is attacked by a rapist, by the thought of raping him. By . . gah. ewwww. The idea of "getting even" or "crushing rapists balls" isn't, necessarily the eww/gah/ick part, it's the obvious arousal, dripping arousal of the superhero as she attacks the rapist.

So, the superhero is Miss Midnight, aka Beth Bernard. Nothing strange about those names. But her roommate is . . . Cookie Fundue? hmms.

Over the top action. Odd bursts of sex.

Villainess Love by Lexi Archer

Villainess Love by Lexi Archer
Pages: 260
Date: January 16 2015
Publisher: Author

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Read: May 21 2015

I didn't actually realize immediately, that this was an erotic superhero story. I should have, I know. What with other works by the author, the cover, the "steamy lesbian" bit in the description. Still, I didn't notice. Was coming off reading several superhero books (prose and graphic novel) and just saw this one and picked it up to read.

It's an interesting enough story. Apparently it's a "they didn't appreciate me, so I'll be a mad scientist" type story. Though this time the mad scientist is a woman. There are other "mad" female supervillains out there, I don't mean to imply that there aren't.

Harley Quinn's character morphs between being goofy, insane, mad, and playing at insane. And has a genius level intelligence. Though most of the time that part gets forgotten and she gets presented as a goofy dim bimbo. Also, a mad psychiatrist isn't the normal type of thing someone things of first when they hear "mad scientist".

Poison Ivy is a mad scientist. At times. Most of the times that aspect doesn't really come to the forefront as she acts more like a magical creature with powers over plants while wearing barely anything. But she is a scientist. And quite mad.

hmms. I could go on. Ok, strike that "this time the mad scientist is a women" and replace with . . . um . . . "mad scientist story". Right. That.

Ok then. Right from the get go the reader learns that this specific mad scientist isn't into madly creating waves of chaos and destruction. She goes out of her way to keep from killing, and from damaging . . . too much. Heck, in the first fight depicted in the book, the superhero causes more damage than the supervillain.

So, right. There's this supervillian. She's quite bored, so she robs a bank. In person. She has the technology that she could rob it electronically, or, if she really wanted to, say, roll around naked in cash, can walk in all causal like, wearing some hidden technology, push some buttons, and poof - vault of cash teleported elsewhere. Without anyone knowing she did it. So, why does so attack a bank in full supervillian costume? Enter the vault, set up teleportation, and . . . leave by the front door instead of teleporting out? Because, as I said, she's bored. Not only is she the top supervillian in the city, no superhero stands a chance against her. And the cops just have symbolic gestures of "we are trying to stop her". Because they know they can't stop her. And she's nice enough to limit the damage, and death.

Except, there's this brand new superhero in town. Who zooms in and beats the tar out of the supervillian. While also causing massive collateral damage. Granted, the supervillian was kinda distracted by how aroused she was by the superhero, but still, the beat down was mostly a combination of 1) superhero just that good; 2) supervillian is out of practice with fighting someone at or above their weight class; 3) supervillian is just so gosh darn aroused by the superhero's mere presence (and confusion of same, since they are both female and she doesn't recall being overly attracted to women before).

Going in the way I did, without realizing the erotic nature of the book, I would have to say that the overall story has some neat little twists on superhero/supervillian/random non-supers interactions. While at the same time the story was . . . well, roughly on the level of a superhero story. A campy superhero story. With graphic sex. As opposed to only skimpily clad supers and implied intimacy.

Well, in terms of "great literature", this ain't that. In terms of superhero stories, it's decent. In terms of erotic stories, it has what it needed. Checked the boxes, so to speak.

This book certainly isn't the best book I've ever read, but I would most likely gobble up at least one more book set in the same universe.