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

Review- This Kiss (DVD)

This Kiss (DVD)

2007

Contemporary/ Lesbian character

When childhood best friends Juliet and Lucy reunite in sun-soaked Australia after a decade, they initially find it rather natural to slip into laughter and intimate bonding despite the fact that they barely recognize each another and an unresolved incident from their long-ago past looms over their heads. Of course, the operative word in the previous sentence is "initially."

I knew nothing about what this movie was about. Again, I perused through my library selection and am sort of just watching all the lesbian/bi themed movies available.

I’d love to say that this is a really good movie, but it didn’t quite make it for me. It’s a good film if you’re in the mood for the type of story in which childhood friends reconnect after years apart and go through the process of healing old wounds. On this level, it’s a decent movie.

It suffers too many issues though from stilted over acting to choppy pacing and weird filming. It’s kind of like watching an amateurish camcorder film. However if the story and acting were a bit smoother, I think it would have been a decent look at a coming out story.

What I did like about it was that both characters feel ashamed about something and show a vulnerability that’s very realistic.

Juliet is a high-powered company executive who travels the world. She’s under an extreme amount of stress and is popping pills to cope. Told to take a short holiday, she decides to go back to her home town, look up her old best friend and go to their 10^th year high school reunion.

When Lucy looks out the window sees her old friend getting out of the car, she freaks and refuses to answer the door at first. She’s gained a lot of weight and feels embarrassed. She’s also still living in the house she grew up in supposedly happily married with two children. She eventually invites Juliet in who is shocked to see her friend looking so different.

As the day wears on, the chit chat goes from superficial topics, to reminiscing teenage events to what their lives are like now to really getting into some deep and old wounds from events that happened before Juliet took off.

Major confessions also happen and while Lucy is jealous that Juliet is skinny and gorgeous and living a full life, she also sees that Juliet isn’t living the great life she thinks.

The big reveal, which was no reveal really, was that Juliet shares with Lucy that she’s a lesbian. It’s something Lucy knew when they were teenagers and she’s shocked that Juliet’s making a bit deal of it.

“The kiss” is part of what happens towards that end of their day together and it’s very awkward for various reasons.

This isn’t a lesbian love story. It’s a story about two friends, one who’s a lesbian who is trying to come to terms with it years later and goes back to the one girl to whom she had her first same sex attraction to “confess” and move on.

I give it a skip if you thought you might like to watch it. If the acting were a bit better, or if I actually believed that Juliet was a lesbian and in angst about it—the actress came off as someone out of touch with actually being a lesbian—it would be a good flick to watch.

Heat Level: 0

Grade: Was just OK