Product Description
Sex is a force of nature. “”A woman stood behind him—no, no mere woman: a bombshell, a vamp, a va-va-voom—a gypsy queen, a menace from Venus.”" Raedawn Somershoe lives in a trailer on the banks of the Fox River. She… More >>
Product Description
Sex is a force of nature. “”A woman stood behind him—no, no mere woman: a bombshell, a vamp, a va-va-voom—a gypsy queen, a menace from Venus.”" Raedawn Somershoe lives in a trailer on the banks of the Fox River. She… More >>
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The sex and the magic are great. Ms. Stevenson has a great sense of humor that doesn’t get in the way of the dramatic tension – of which there is quite a bit. She clearly cares about her characters, and she understands about magic, metaphorical and real.
Rating: 5 / 5
Trash Sex Magic is about, well, what’s in the title. The magical stability of a riverside part of land is in trouble, and can only be solved with sexual magic. Which might sound like the book’s just an excuse for lots of gratuitous porn. Except for the part where Stevenson has written a cast of great, real characters, has made her magic dark and troublesome, has a plot that keeps moving, and treats sex as a complicated and integral part of the book’s characters. I had trouble putting this one down at night.
Rating: 5 / 5
Truthfully, this book is a challenge; but not one through which it’s impossible to find enjoyment and amazement. Its narrative is somewhat abrupt and trippy, but don’t think you’d be cheated out of a terrific story. Stevenson gives due coverage of the natural powers, the sensual aspects, and the earthly rhythms of life along the riverbed in a northern plains setting. Her careful attention to the plant and animal species brought me the two-mile distance from where I live from the Fox River myself straight to its muddy banks.
The nutty and random sexual activity of “T-S-M”‘s characters, though, made me blush and giggle. The seeds of power clearly reside within the females; these characters seem to germinate the tumult and bear the burden of change for their folk and property. Through all the struggle, however, it’s the ladies who are having all the fun. The contrapuntal futility of the males’ lack of influence on the survival of these loosely bonded river residents delivers the hottest frustrating points in this story. Their failures and ineptitudes magnify the sadness of the poverty (and that of their illegitimate children) they suffer. Fortunately, their misery is alleviated by the riverside women and their channeled energies.
Rating: 4 / 5
Wow! This book was entrancing right from the beginning, with its incredibly lyrical and sensuous language. It kept luring me in every night, keeping me up late reading it, until I finished, not unlike the characters are lured and sucked into irrevocable events and their fates.
It has a mythical feel, almost fairy tale like, in the vein of the original Grimm Bros. tales, with a lot of mystical darkness in the mix. But it’s not all dark either, there is lots of light, including the pleasurable words that seem to flow across the page and into your mind, painting wonderful word pictures.
Having lived near the area where the book takes place, I can also attest that the author does a fantastic job of intertwining reality into this fantasy tale. The characters–human and animal–are as real as my own two hands.
This book is truly something different and special, and the author has a fresh talented voice in a crowded literary fiction market. Thanks to the author for writing this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have a girlfriend who brings self help books over to my house and says, “This book is so great, as I read it I kept thinking, yes, that’s what I’ve been doing for years! and the author said it so beautifully.” Well, I gave her this book and she hated it. When I asked her why, she just kept saying, “Well, it was weird . . . it was weird.”
I don’t know what she meant by that. Was it the dirt-poor trailer dwellers engaging in what New Agers would call energy healing? Or the 14-year-old girl who has an affair with her mom’s ex-boyfriend, and no one really thinks twice about it? Maybe the shape-shifting, or the 2 children of uncertain parentage who live in a hole in the ground, pilfering food and clothing from their neighbors? Questionable dealings with insurance companies? The slant against real estate development?
I’m guessing it wasn’t the sex, though this book has, as far as I can recall, more sex than any other book of fiction I’ve ever read. (A porn novel presumably would have more sex, but I don’t remember ever reading a porn novel.) This book gives a new meaning to the word “tree-hugger,” by the way.
I finally figured it out. My girlfriend reads books to confirm things she already knows. I read books to introduce myself to new, different ideas. I LOVED this book.
So I guess I should thank Jennifer Stevenson for giving me an insight into my friend. Plus she tells a fabulous story, and she says it so beautifully.
Rating: 5 / 5