Movie Reviews: Stud Life, Blue is the Warmest Color, Cloudburst

Stud Life (British)
2013
Lesbian Stud-Femme/ Gay

JJ is a hot black British 'Stud' Lesbian. Together with her best friend Seb, a white gay pretty boy, they work as wedding photographers and run around the urban London LGBT scene. When JJ falls in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman, JJ and Seb's friendship is tested. JJ is forced to choose between her hot new lover and her best friend.

This was a really good film. I think it’s not easy to find a lesbian film with black characters, but even more so, harder to find a film about a sub group within the lesbian community. I enjoyed it on every level and thought it an interesting mash up of types of characters.

So the blurb for this film is pretty much what the movie is about. It’s basically about these characters going through life as GLBT persons and trying to find love.

JJ and Seb make and interesting friendship. Both get on great and I felt the writers, filmmakers, and actors did an amazing job of making me believe that these two unlikely friends really do love each other and have each other’s backs.

Both JJ and Seb are having short, non-serious flings with others but no one is really sticking for either of them. And for Seb, a dorky, sensitive drug dealer, Smack Jack, keeps hitting on him, but Seb can’t stand him. Since they all hang out in the same circles they keep coming across each other and Seb finds there’s more to him than he first judged. In the meantime, Seb is sexting through the internet with other gay guys. He is rather a romantic though and wants to find a keeper.

JJ is a stud lesbian who finds herself attracted to a femme lesbian she met at that bar they all hang out in. What I loved here is that she is a stone butch/ stud and the movie really shows the relationship/sexual dynamics of a stone butch/femme relationship. Her girlfriend Elle wants to have sex and touch JJ but JJ really does keep in control. I liked that contrary to the “stud” reputation of being tough, she shows vulnerability when expressing to Elle that she will not allow sexual touching. She’s worried that Elle will not accept that. They do hug and cuddle a lot, which showed how they feel for each other. They both accept the conditions just to be close to each other. However, Elle has a secret that derails their relationship for a while. And it’s something that I felt made Elle a lot more human and vulnerable.

As the story progresses, the average day in these characters’ lives is expressed in all facets, including homophobic attacks on them, back biting within the GLBT community and the use of GLBT by straight people for kicks. And it also shows JJ and Seb just being friends going through issues with each other as lovers enter the picture.

It also has an assortment of entertaining, colorful side characters as JJ and Seb are shown photographing all kinds of events with all kinds of straight/ GLBT people.

Finally, there is a happy ending for both JJ and Seb and it’s a really sweet, satisfying, romantic movie. It’s definitely a movie for anyone who wants to watch something a bit different in GLBT. All the actors in this film make it worthwhile to watch.

Heat Level 2: some sex scenes, some nudity, but nothing graphic.

Grade: 4 ½ Stars

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La vie d'Adèle (French)
Blue is the Warmest Color
2013
Lesbian/ bi/ YA

Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself and ultimately finds herself through love and loss.

This movie was hyped up the wazoo as you all know. I usually head the other direction of anything this hyped and talked about, and luckily I did, because I could watch it without everyone’s opinions in my head about it.

So right to the point, it didn’t do as much for me as I’ve read it did for others. Maybe it’s more due to my age. This is really a YA story and it’s mainly about the passion and pain of a first love. On that level it’s quite good and I can see how this film would hit all the spots for a young person. I probably would have loved this in my 20’s.

I almost didn’t finish it as well. This is a 3 hour movie and I had the feeling the director or camera person must be in love with the lead actress who played Adele because it seemed the camera was on her all. the. time, in every scene and with non-stop shots of her just staring blankly or expressing with her face. To be fair, I think the actress who played Adele did a great job. But I felt about maybe an hour of the film could have been cut because endless scenes of her crying or looking blank seemed too much.

Also, one of the reasons this film was so talked about is that it has one of the longest sex scenes ever in a regular (non porn) movie. For me, it was way too much because it wasn’t the only sex scene. Compared to other sex scenes I saw between women in the few lesbian films I watched before this one, I felt these were just one step below porn, which isn’t bad per se, if you want to watch porn. And while the sex scenes expressed the passion and intensity of the physical attraction between these two women, it didn’t express any of what might have been true love between them.

The other negative; I get tired of “lesbians fuck around and can’t commit for a long time” kind of thing I see and read so often. Emma is living with someone when she meets and has sex with Adele. Emma then starts hanging out with an old girlfriend while living with Adele. Adele cheats on Emma with a guy. I mean seriously, can’t anyone stay together?

On to what I loved. I loved that at least before the women get physical, there is a relationship build-up. They don’t just meet and suddenly they’re in-love, like some of the other films I watched. And the film did make an interesting statement about the difference between passion and love. What Adele and Emma have is a sexually passionate relationship. In the end it makes a statement that sexual passion doesn’t always equal long term love or that it’s enough to sustain a long term relationship.

It’s also a movie that shows the growth of Adele as she goes through all this pain of a first love and then moving beyond, learning and growing up. So this was a positive. 

Even though this movie didn’t float my boat as much as other people, I would still definitely recommend it. It is intense and show sexual passion in all it’s facets.

Heat level: 5+ -numerous, fairly graphic sex scenes with full nudity.

Grade: 3 1/2  Stars


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Cloudburst
2011
Lesbian

The best geriatric lesbian road movie you have ever seen. Thelma and Louise eat your heart out.

I watched about the first 20 or so mins of this film and stopped. DNF. I had high hopes for this film. I love Olympia Dukakis and thought this would be a great lesbian film about older lesbians trying to stick together as they age.

Unfortunately, I felt it was off. Dukakis’ character Stella is rather crass from the get-go. I could see where she was coming from, but it was a bit over the top and off-putting. She’s gruff, but not in that older woman give a shit, cute and amusing way, no, she fights and argues with most everyone with lots of over the top cursing, and needlessly I felt. She pretty much alienates everyone except of course, those that accept her as she is.

It starts out with Dot, Stella’s partner for over 30’s years, breaking a bone after a fall and needing full care for a few weeks. She’s also almost totally blind. Dot’s granddaughter, who unbelievably is totally clueless that her grandmother is a lesbian and who has no real idea about what her grandmother is about, insists it’s time for her to go into an assisted living facility. This enrages Stella who feels she can still take care of her. And also it will mean they cannot be together. The granddaughter also tells Stella she may stay in their house for a little while, until she finds another place (the house was Dot’s mother’s house and so legally, hers), which of course pisses Stella off because it’s THEIR house. 

Where I stopped watching was when the granddaughter tricked Dot into signing some papers giving up her house and getting into the assisted living facility under the guise of keeping Stella from getting charged with any negligence in Dot’s fall. Dot is smiling as she gets into the car with her granddaughter, while Stella is bangs on the car window screaming.

The level of cluelessness all around is also what bugged me. Dot has been with Stella for 30 years and yet she trusts her granddaughter over Stella and doesn’t even try to stop the granddaughter from driving away, wondering why Stella is screaming.

Then, again, Stella’s personality is off-putting to me. As the granddaughter is driving away, she’s calling her a bitch and a fucking cunt, etc. No. Seriously, I have the mouth of a sailor, I drop the f word all the time. But there’s constant cursing with antagonistic personality type and then there’s just cursing here and there.

Maybe if I would have kept watching I might have loved it, but I just couldn’t. I think it probably told the story of many older lesbians who have no legal rights with each other and also who have no place to be together like assisted living, or nursing homes or such, which I think is an important story to tell. I just wish it was told a bit differently or that the beginning didn’t put me off too much to finish it.

Grade: DNF

Movie reviews: A Perfect Ending, I Can't Think Straight, Kiss Me

A Perfect Ending
2012
F/f-/ May-Dec/ Interracial

Rebecca has a very unusual secret, one that not even her best friends know about. The last person on earth she expects to reveal it to is a high priced escort named Paris. What starts as a comedy of errors ends up a uniquely erotic journey. Rebecca's unconventional efforts to find herself are raw, evocative, and often times humorous, but always very real, very human. Sometimes a perfect ending is not what you expect it to be. 

- Written by Soul Kiss Films

You know how you read a book or watch a movie and the story stays with you for days and days and you realize it affected you on a really deep level, this is what A Perfect Ending was for me. It’s gorgeous story both on a human level and on an aesthetic level in how it’s expressed.

There are a crap ton of reviews for this movie, so what I’m going to say about it is how and why it affected me so deeply. The main thing about this movie for me was how beautifully and lovingly it shows human vulnerability and the growth that can happen from a relationship, even a relationship with a complete stranger, and also almost strictly a sexual relationship, in which two people feel totally safe to let themselves open up and heal from personal wounds. It’s also about how we come to terms with what’s important when faced with mortality.

On more practical levels, I love that it featured a middle aged women and a sex worker who is empowered by her choice to be a call girl.

Just for edification, this is not a romance. Nor is it really a lesbian story. Neither of the main characters are lesbians. It’s not about sexual passion either. I do feel this is a love story though and definitely it’s a story about connecting deeply on a human level. But also a warning, ending might disappoint. For me it was more about the ride, the here and now vs forever in what I felt this story was meant to portray.

Rebecca is wealthy middle aged woman who on the surface seems to have it all. And she does-- on the surface. She’s not that unhappy or miserable in general, she just seems to accept the status quo and doesn’t think about her needs or wants too much. There is though, a family secret that has caused her a lot of pain and she cannot get passed it at times.

While out with her best friends, a lesbian couple, she confesses that she’s never felt passion. Nor has she never had an orgasm. This of course shocks her friends who cannot believe it. She further confesses that her marriage is not that great and she rarely has sex. Her friends suggest that maybe she needs a woman to show her what she and her body can feel. They know a madam who runs an agency for call girls and think maybe it would be easier for her if she hired one of those girls to help her with that. She decides to go for it but under the condition that the woman be her own age.

Paris is a young woman who is grieving the loss of her fiancé. She is a call girl by night but an artist by day and she’s definitely not in it for the money only, she’s working out her grief by being a call girl. Maybe it’s her way feel some control about her life during this process. When her older colleague, the one who was supposed to go to Rebecca, asks her to meet Rebecca because she has an emergency, she agrees. When she gets there though, Rebecca is shocked that she ended up with a younger woman, freaks out, and decides not to go through with it. But Paris is very intense and open and accepting and seems to know exactly what Rebecca is about. And Rebecca picks that up. 

Rebecca tries a few more times- getting the older woman second time, whom she decides is so not for her, then asks for Paris again. In 3rd meeting, Paris again tries to seduce her but puts no pressure on Rebecca. Finally, Rebecca decides to go for it and it’s amazing for her.

Here I want to interject that actress Barbara Niven did an amazing job of expressing all those fears of not being appealing or desirable being an older woman with older women body flaws. And kudos to her as an actress, who is a very nice looking woman and has an image to maintain, that she showed her actual physical flaws in this movie. I think that took a lot of courage and added to her actual vulnerability as a character.

The first sex scene is really about Rebecca letting go and trusting. Paris being a much younger, very gorgeous woman has the power in this, but she’s portrayed as sort of an experienced, wise, old soul who really is accepting and understanding. She does feel a connection with Rebecca that is beyond their “business” arrangement, so it’s more for her as well. This connection she feels, maybe because Rebecca is also in a very vulnerable space, helps Paris also let go of her grief in a very intimate way.

In case anyone is wondering—although you can see most of the sex scenes are on youtube—the sex between the women is very loving, soft and even though both are naked- it’s not salacious in any way. In fact, there were moments I felt I didn’t want to watch because it felt like I was intruding on some deeply intimate moments. Not the intimacy of sex alone, but the intimacy of being emotionally raw and open during sex. So if you’d watch for some hot girl on girl sex, this is not the movie.

Other than this, I love how this film was filmed. It has almost a Zen-like feel to it. There are lots of fade in and out scenes with action but no words. Since the two women only meet in the hotel room and don’t talk about their lives with each other, the back story of both women, where they are coming from, is told through most of those silent or brief snippets in between them meeting.

The other characters also added a lot to this film. It’s much more than two women connecting, it’s also about life and love and family from and what that all means for a woman.

All in all this movie grabbed me and I’d definitely recommend it, especially if you’re about two people connecting beyond a sexual orientation or if you’re an older woman who would love a story about having courage to experience new things.

Bonus for this movie is that the actress who played Paris is an out lesbian. Something you don’t see hardly ever in lesbian movies. Mostly it’s straight women playing lesbians. So kudos for getting an actual GLBT person to play that role.

Heat level: 3-4- full nudity and sex scenes, very beautifully and aesthetically filmed. Not salacious in any way.

Grade: 5 Stars

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I Can’t Think Straight (British)
2008
Lesbian/ Multicultural

Adaptation of book by Shamim Sarif
A 2008 romance film adapted from a same name novel about a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian descent, Tala, who is preparing for an elaborate wedding. A turn of events causes her to have an affair and subsequently fall in love with another woman, Leyla, a British Indian. 

- Written by Shamim Sarif

I have another book written by this author of the book this story is based off of that I’ve yet to read, so I decided to watch this film instead of that one.

What I loved about this film is that this is a love story that happens between two people from very different backgrounds that happens despite familial, cultural, political and generational conflicts.

Both Tala and Leyla are young women caught between two worlds. They are both living in England, although Tala goes back and forth between Jordan and England. They’ve been brought up exposed to western culture, but both have homes and parents that try to keep their own traditional homeland culture alive. This is one of the main conflicts for both of them and also maybe what helps them understand each other even though of different cultural backgrounds.

They meet just by chance as Leyla’s boyfriend is a friend of Tala. Tala is on her 4th wedding planning, having walked out on the first 3 fiancés just before the wedding. Tala is rather rebellious and being from a wealthy family, her whims and flightiness are somewhat tolerated.

Leyla is a lot more deep and serious about life. She’s a Muslim in her heart, mind and belief, but she doesn’t always go to prayer with her family. She’s also struggling with the contradictions of being a woman growing up in a western culture while dealing with her mother who is very strong in trying to keep their Indian culture alive. This especially becomes an issue when she comes out to her family.

Both women clash at first as Tala, who grew up as a Palestinian Christian Arab, argues that religion and belief are bogus, which kind of pisses Leyla off. But slowly they come together and become good friends and find themselves attracted to each other both romantically and sexually.

Of course, as with many romances between women when one is currently with a man, the main problem between them becomes that Tala is getting married. In this case, I was rather surprised that Tala, who seems to be the more open as one who bucks the system in many ways, feels very strongly about not coming out and won’t defy her family’s culture. She argues with Leyla that Leyla doesn’t get how hard it would be to do that with her family and in Jordan, where the man she’s to marry is from.

On the other hand, this affair pushes Leyla internally to decide that she can’t or won’t hide who she is to her family and friends anymore. So until Tala is willing to accept who she is, Leyla will not see her.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t feeling the romance so much between these two women even though it’s shown they have had attractions to women in the past. Somehow it felt a bit too insta-love for me, which is maybe why this film didn’t affect me other than I love stories that include characters of other cultures and in which those cultures are part of the story. I think maybe it’s also because I wasn’t feeling Tala as a character. She was a little too superficial and a bit cocky for me for most of the film and I felt her not really that serious about Leyla.

But I did feel that Leyla is really in love with Tala and she, as a character, made the film for me.

Other than that, I felt the film didn’t shy away from the truths or realities of cultural and political clashes. I feel some people might be offended by some of what is expressed, however, I took all at face value and as a true portrayal of what is real for people of those cultures.

I’d definitely recommend this if you’re looking for something a bit different culturally. But as a romance goes, it was just OK.

Heat level: 2 – some sex, no nudity

Grade: 3 ½ Stars

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Kyss Mig -Kiss Me (Swedish)
2011
Lesbian/ bi?

Young woman engaged to be married finds herself in an affair with her stepmother's lesbian daughter.

This was one of the better lesbian movies I saw during my marathon. And I guess from others in the lesbian community they think it’s one of the better ones as well.

Elizabeth and Lassa are an older couple who are about to be married. Both have older, independent children. Lasse had a contentious divorce and his daughter Mia still feels angry with him about what happened. Consequently, she hasn’t visited often. Elizabeth has a grown daughter who is an out lesbian and in a relationship and lives nearby.

At the pre-wedding party, all of them meet for the first time and family drama ensues.

Mia (played by Ruth Vega Fernandez) is sulky and cranky because her father isn’t spending the time with her that she wants. He’s always busy with some job thing. She also shows a pissed/sad face whenever she sees Frida, Elizabeth’s daughter. Frida is light and fun and both Mia’s brother and fiancé are enjoying with Frida. I will say that actress Ruth Vega Fernandez has the perfect sad/pissed off look that worked here.

Anyway, as the days go on, Mia, who is an architect with her fiancé, is to design and extension on a lake house that Lasse and Elizabeth have bought. Lasse was supposed to meet them, but leaves Mia alone with both Elizabeth and Frida, which pisses her off and freaks her out. All of her interactions with Frida show she’s not too happy with this.

However, one night at the cabin, she follows Frida who is out walking in the woods. They barely talk, but then she suddenly kisses Frida. She acts freaked that she did that, but at the same time both women get sexual fairly quickly after that. Of course, as the days go on and they start really falling in love, Frida basically states she will not be a fling for Mia and cuts it off. This forces Mia to confront what she really feels and how far she’s willing to go to be with Frida.

Of course, this new development messes with Mia’s plans for marriage and a lot of pain for all characters in this story happens due to this new love between these women. I felt it was dealt with in a realistic way. I guess there is no easy way to follow your heart when it’s going against everyone you love and the convenience of life at times. But this was one of the better parts of the film.

The only negative thing I will say is that like so many of the lesbian movies I watched these last few weeks, insta-love seemed to be a thing here. I wish there was more of a build-up to why Mia would be attracted to Frida and why Frida would fall so madly in love with Mia that she leaves her long-time girlfriend. There really wasn’t much between them that did show that.

However, what saves this movie is that in the end, I really believed these women want each other badly. Enough that both risk so much to go for it.

For those wondering, this is not really a straight girl falls for a girl and discovers she’s a lesbian. Mia did have a love affair with a woman in the past but felt it freaked her out. So it’s more like lesbian in the closet finally having the guts to be true to herself.

Anyway… this is a definite recommend to watch. I can’t really believe this is the first Swedish lesbian film. Seems like the stereotype that Europeans are more open about stuff like this is not always true.

Heat level: 3-4 Nude sex scene, done showing lots of passion.

Grade: 4 ½ Stars

Review- Love and Devotion by Jove Belle

Love and Devotion
By Jove Belle
Dec 17, 2013
Lesbian/Contemporary/Romance/Friends to lovers/Small town
240 pgs
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Kindle Edition

KC Hall loves her family, her small East Texas town, and her best friend, Emma Reynolds. All of that takes a backseat when her lover beckons. Lonnie is blond, beautiful, and willing. She’s also married and a lifelong friend of KC’s mama.

KC knows the affair is a bad idea, but she just can’t help herself. When presented with the lush landscape of Lonnie’s body, KC subscribes to the philosophy of “orgasm first, think later.” Unfortunately, a secret that big is impossible to keep in a close-knit community where everybody knows everybody else’s business. The scandal would hurt her entire family.

Emma is KC’s exception, the one woman she loves enough to not have sex with. When Emma confesses that she’s loved KC since high school, KC is terrified. One wrong move and she could lose Emma completely.

Is she willing to let her family pay the price for her good time? Or will she turn to Emma to discover the true meaning of love and devotion?

I have read several of Jove Belle’s books and I’ve enjoyed them. This one looked appealing to me so I went for it. It’s a good story. Definitely a good friends to lovers story. However, even though I enjoyed it for the most part, it seemed to drag and felt like it went on and on forever. I feel that it was mostly due to how drawn out this story was from the time Emma lets it be known she has more than “just friends” feelings for KC and KC realizing that she’s always loved Emma.

For some, how this book starts out might be off-putting. KC is having an affair with her mother’s married best friend Lonnie. That’s a no-no for several obvious reasons. But the way it’s written, I was intrigued and not really bothered because as the story progresses there is character growth and understanding of the negative consequences to everyone involved. And also, this is a more complex story involving several characters; it’s not just about those two and the sneaking around.

I’ll start with KC. In her career life she’s totally together and on top of things. She got her master’s degree and has a great job that offers her a good living with a flexible schedule. She lives with Emma, her best friend from high school, and as far as their relationship goes, they are very close friends only. From KC’s side, Emma is the one person who grounds her and she feels comfort with when they are together. They actually sleep in the same bed together and cuddle, which I thought kind of weird if they are trying to keep things platonic, but manage to keep things from going further.

KC is also very close to her family and takes care when issues happen with her younger sister. She’s community oriented in that she goes to church with her family every Sunday and follows all the rules and expectations of being in a small community where everyone knows each other…on the surface.  Her main flaw though, and it’s one that is cause for a lot of grief between her, Emma, her sisters, and Lonnie, is that she’s flighty and irresponsible when it comes to her love life and sexual desires. This is where she has no scruples, nor any common sense. And the fact that she’s having an affair with her mother’s friend and a married woman is not sitting well with anyone. However, Lonnie has her hooked and KC finds it hard to break away from her even though she knows it’s wrong.

As this story is mostly about KC, meaning she’s the center of it, Emma is not really as developed or shown to the reader. All we get to know about Emma is that she’s always loved KC as more than just a friend and that she is will not agree to be with KC until KC gets really clear she wants to be with Emma. This, even though she wants KC more than anything. I have to respect her on that. She knows what’s been going on between KC and Lonnie and she knows that even though KC is professing her love and desire to be with her, KC will still not commit totally.

And this is the crux of why this story dragged. KC admits to herself that she wants Emma and she gets possessive and jealous when Emma meets up with a former lover, but she’s unwilling to completely break it with Lonnie even though she knows for Lonnie she is only desired for booty call. Even at that, it’s never a sharing or exchange of giving. Lonnie never satisfies KC, it’s only about her, which kind of pisses KC off. She’s also not clear that she can commit given her history. What I felt could have been cleared up fairly quickly got drawn out due to KC’s being wishy-washy.

On the plus side of that, it’s good to show the natural progression of character growth and love in a relationship, which the author did superbly here. We get to see KC’s process and how she goes from existing for lust to discovering that love is more worthy of her energy.

Other than that, there are a lot of interesting characters and I did enjoy the small town feel even if I don’t believe a small Texas town or church in a small town would be so accepting of the gay population like they are in the one portrayed here. But I did like that KC’s and Emma’s families accepted them as lesbians and as a couple.

I definitely recommend Love and Devotion if you’re really into the small town, church going, family oriented type of story in which everyone has a happy ending. And also if you like the friends to lovers story. It excelled on that point.

Heat level: 3 – some graphic sex, but scattered throughout the story.

Grade: 3 ½ Stars

Review- Safe Passage by Kate Owen

Safe Passage
By Kate Owen
Feb 5, 2014
Contemporary/Lesbian/Romance/Mystery
116 pages
Pub: Less Than Three Press
Kindle Edition

While doing renovation on the old New Orleans home inherited from her great aunt, Jules discovers an old safe filled with letters written in French—and code. Enlisting the aid of a local French teacher, the beautiful Gen, Jules slowly begins to learn the truth of her great grandfather's death …

Safe Passage is a cute, fun story with very likable characters who gel nicely. It’s also a mystery of sorts.

Both Jules and Gen are instructors at a school for girls. Both have been eying each other but have kept quiet about it. Jules is an out lesbian at the school, but Gen is more mysterious and doesn’t give away that she’s into women.

They both come together when Jules needs Gen to translate some old documents she’s found that are written in French. Of course, it comes out fairly quickly that Gen is into women and they get together without too much ado.

Both characters are fun and interesting. The author infused a lot of humor and light banter between them, adding to my enjoyment of the book.

To be honest, it’s an easy going love story with no real drama, which is kind of refreshing. I wouldn’t want to read books like this all the time because a little tension and drama is good. However, it’s a welcome change once in a while to have two people click and go for it without constant issues coming in that drag a story just to create faux obstacles for the couple to face and get over. 

As far as the mystery part goes, I think I was expecting a bit more on it. It’s really not that developed and the reveal wasn’t a big wow. What was more important I guess is that the women have something to work on together or have an excuse to interact with an outside objective so they can get to know each other.

But I did like that part of the mystery involved her aunt who was an interesting character, and also, that she was involved in a mix race love story, something scandalous for her time.

What I ultimately felt about this story was that it could be the precursor to these two characters being in a detective series. They work well together, they are great at digging up clues and have good chemistry.

Bottom line, Safe Passage is the perfect, light feel good book to read between two weightier and more serious books.

Heat level: 2- some sex, nothing too graphically written

Grade: 4 stars for emotional, entertainment value
            3 ½ Stars for lack of development in either romance or mystery

Review- SBF Seeking- by LaToya Hankins

SBF Seeking
By LaToya Hankins
Contemporary/ Lesbian/ Chick lit/Coming out/AA
January 22, 2012
Pgs 234
Pub:  JMS Books, LLC
Kindle edition

Four months before her wedding, Yvette Thurman realizes this might be her last chance to have a sexual fling with a white man. But she never thought placing a personal ad would lead her to discover she was a lesbian.

Yvette's small town life in eastern North Carolina never prepared her for the personal journey she undertakes as she struggles to find her heart's path.

Through personal ads and late night visits to an adult bookstore, Yvette learns more about her own personal desires than she ever did when she was engaged to be married. If she embraces her true self, can she find acceptance and love from her family and friends? Or will she be forced to hide who she really is from those she cares about the most?

So this is not really a book I normally read; I usually stick to romances or erotica. I often find chick lit too close to IRL-- been there done that--want to read something different that doesn’t represent my experiences. This is a book written by an African American woman about African American lesbians. I’m neither of those, so I took a risk and bought this one. The blurb both intrigued me and pushed my buttons—starts out with cheating, a usual “oh hell no” for me. But I was curious to see where the author would go with this since it so brazenly sets up what seems like an unrealistic or over-the-top story line.

Yvette is the main protagonist and this story is told by her. It’s basically a telling of her experience as she semi-consciously (in awareness) creates a catalyst for her own growth. Her life is going perfectly, or so it seems. She has a good job that she enjoys and is engaged to Martin, a man who’s madly in love with her. They’ve been together for a long time and are about to be married. For some reason, and I probably have an opinion that differs from other readers, she jeopardizes her relationship by having a fling with a random white guy because it could be her last chance.

The cheating with a white guy thing is interesting to me because there is no set up for the reader that she’s ever been curious or aching or craved to know what it’s like to be with a “white” guy specifically. It’s kind of odd, I think, to wake up one day and decide you want to have an affair with someone of another race you have no connection with just to experience it specifically. I felt she chose that, maybe unconsciously, because it was a way to be forced to look at some dissatisfaction with her relationship with Martin, but in a non-threatening way. It clearly wasn’t a serious attempt at a possible new relationship even though her decision was one she was willing to follow through on if it worked out.

Lots of people do dumb ass things to jeopardize the “perfect” status quo when they are not conscious of their dissatisfaction. Or if they are conscious of it, they don’t have the courage to do something about it. I think she already knew, deep down, it wasn’t going to affect her at her core as maybe having an affair with a black man might have. However, doing so did make her question what she actually feels towards Martin and it’s the cause for a huge change in her life.

As is common with stories more focused on growth, a series of events catapult Yvette into learning different things about herself, especially one that will cause conflict for those who love her. Through a coworker asking, Yvette ends up helping out a lesbian couple move into her apartment building and becomes friends with them. She ends up going out with them to a gay bar and becomes attracted to a girl who keeps looking at her. There’s a lot in between, but after a while, she feels she’s a lesbian and enters that world 150 %. Meaning, she comes out to everyone without too much angst, and studies everything about being a lesbian: how they dress, what they read, music they listen to, etc.

In some ways I read it as Yvette telling the story from outside herself and I didn’t really get a good feel for what all of this means to her, inside her being. She came across to me as too easy going about cheating on Martin and breaking up, and easy about realizing she’s a lesbian and telling everyone. And she didn’t seem too bothered or freaked about the downfall of her first lesbian love. It felt like her story was kept on the surface as maybe it would if retelling and having emotional distance from it.

I’ll be honest, maybe my impression of her is more about me being an older woman. It’s a story that I think in many ways would be much more interesting to a younger woman who can identify with her growth and the coming out process.

Who was an interesting character for me is Linda. I loved Linda. She’s a warm, juicy, real, down to earth woman who helps Yvette navigate being a new lesbian and coming out process as well as guiding her in a more realistic and practical way about the realities of being a lesbian. I loved her advice to Yvette to just be and let it all happen naturally. And while she’s going through her own issues, being part of an interracial couple and that falling apart, she’s real even in that, expressing her hurt and anger. Her vulnerability comes through even though not her story. I also got a better feel for her emotional state than I did for Yvette’s, making her easier for me to relate to. I would love to read a story with her as the main character.

Throughout the story, the importance of having family and good friends to support you through life is a strong theme.

The main negative thing I’d say about this book is the editing. There are numerous typos. Enough that I noticed them throughout the book. It didn’t bother me too much but it some readers might find it an issue.

At any rate, this was a good read.  I think this is the author’s first published book? Not sure. But I’d read more books from this author. I felt it’s a true and interesting depiction of someone coming out as a lesbian with all the nuances and issues come up.

Heat level: 2

Grade: 3-1/2 stars