Good for Somethingby Anika Hamilton
June 2008
Contemporary/ Lesbian
Short Story
Ebook
Buy it Total-E-Bound -$2.81
Casey never had a really serious relationship; while Nicolette just got out of a bad one.
Nicolette Marchand relocated to
Casey Addison, bookshop owner, was a native of
Helping each other, will these two women discover a love they never knew they needed? And can Nicolette open herself up and trust that together, they are both...
Good for Something?
Good for Something was definitely good for something. It was a sweet, quick, satisfying read about two women who fall in love and give each other something neither has had before. Nicolette gets a sane, supportive partner who’s not out to kill her at every turn and Casey gets to experience real love for the first time in her adult life.
Nicolette is new in town, forced to leave the only place she’s known and lived to get away from Gabriella, her former lover who violently attacked her for trying to break up. Checking out her new town, she ends up in Feed Your Mind bookstore owned by Casey.
The two women hit it off immediately and sparks fly between them. They take their time though and spend a month getting to know each other before having sex.
After spending a hot weekend together of making love during a trip, their first time to be secluded together for a couple of days, they decide to move in together, taking their relationship to a deeper level.
In the meantime though, Gabriella has found Nicolette and has been calling her, threatening her. When Gabriella makes a real move and attacks Casey putting her in the hospital, Casey confronts Nicolette about not sharing and trusting her with the fact that Gabriella has been stalking them, and pushes Nicolette to face her trust issues within their relationship.
This is a short story so I didn’t expect too much in the way of a lot of detail leading into a relationship or other details that would explain some missing pieces. Like in this case, how Gabriella found Nicolette and why she’s in FL instead of where she lives in AZ. But I will say that this story was better than average at being a complete story without too many holes left to be filled in by me the reader.
The story starts out nicely, but I thought that in the initial meeting the emotional connection happened unrealistically fast, with both acting more familiar then would normally be the case upon a first ever meeting of someone. The real emotional build-up was just explained and not really shown. However, from that point, the relationship between Nicolette and Casey was written in a believable way and I could feel that these two are really into each other and that they will have an HEA.
One thing I did like is that this is the first story about two women lovers who practice some sort of safe sex in that they both get tested before having sex. In m/f, and m/m stories the condom issue seems to be a biggy for many readers in contemporaries with many being upset if there is lack of mention. But it was good to read some sort of mention of safe sex practice between two female lovers who’ve just met.
The whole ex-girlfriend turned stalker was a good counterpoint to force Nicolette to open up and also to give the women a reason to become even more intimate with each other. Plus it created some tension, causing Nicolette and Casey to really come together and fight for themselves as a couple. Gabriella’s stalking and violence towards the women was very realistically written and did have me thinking about what it would be like to have that happen.
The only thing that got on my nerves, and this is purely a matter of taste, is that both women address each other as “Casey girl”, Nicolette girl,” “my girl,” “my Casey/Nicolette girl,” and so on, all. the. time. Because it was every single time it got a bit nauseating in that way in which couples have cutesy names for each other that make others want to barf.
For a short story though, Good for Something was a good read, the sex was hotly written, and I’d definitely read some more of Ms. Hamilton’s work.
Sex rating: Wet Panties- usual f/f stuff with some minor anal. No toys.
Grade: C+
4 comments:
Wow, I'm seeing a trend here. The f/f books available in our current market all seem to be in the C range.
What would it take to get some A reads?
It's kind of depressing. :(
Jen-- yes, unfortunately. I'm giving C's to these short books because really, when I compare them to an A or B they aren't close. This book had some funky writing in bits and I tend to give short stories a lesser grade unless they are frigging amazing, which is rare because there's really not much space to really develop characters and story line that would make me go wow!
That said, yes, the pickings are really slim for any f/f and even rarer for f/f/m or a well written bisexual woman not in a threesome but who goes with both.
Not only are pickings slim, but they are usually from the more fringe epubs that I think puts out a lot of stuff that's not well edited or even well written.
Although it's not my real preference, the best stuff I'm reading is pure lesbian stuff put out by authors who have been writing in that genre for a while and which are put out by pubs that specialize in GLBT, paper pubs. But they are way expensive and I would rather read an ebook.
I'd much rather read more f/f/m but it's just not happening. :(
Kirsten is really one of the very rare authors who writes it.
Bonnie Dee really batted one out of the park with her contribution to that LSB antho, Three. Now that was a sizzling hot f/f/m that also grabbed me on a deeper, emotional level. Two bad about the other two stories (an m/m/m and an m/f/m). The one just annoyed the crap out of me, and the other left me feeling like I needed a shower. With some lye. And a wire brush.
Most of the f/f I've found is either porny (perhaps written by men) stuff that's only good for one-handed reading--and some of the writing is so distractingly bad it's not even good for that--or all touchy-feely and lame, with no spark at all.
Where the eff is Shane from the L-Word when you need her? She'd kick ass in a book.
I think a lot of writers just don't get the dynamics of female bisexuality. And so many who do maybe don't want to write it because it's their real lives, or they're busy writing about men hooking up because that's more interesting to them.
It really is depressing.
Then I find a Michele deLully or a Bonnie Dee f/f/m and it's like opening a Christmas present.
Kirsten-- agreed on Bonnie Dee's story. I wish I could have finished that book but I felt sick in my stomach with one of those other stories as well. Maybe one day I can read it. Ugh. Too bad because Bonnie Dee's story is so hot and well written.
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