1st place 2019 Clitorides Award for Best Erotic Do-Over! Life was good; just not long enough. At 80 years old, Jacob is dying and wants to go back to his youth. He has no burning desire to change the world. He just isn't ready to die. And someone has decided that's okay. But he's in for a major surprise. His new life is in an alternate reality. Things just aren't what he remembered. ©2019 Elder Road Books
Size: 844 KB (168,604 words)
Genre: Coming of Age
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: mt/ft, mt/Fa, Teenagers, Consensual, Lesbian, Heterosexual, TransGender, School, DoOver, Incest, Brother, Sister, Polygamy/Polyamory, First, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Tit-Fucking
Review by ausie-import [other reviews by ausie-import]
Reviewed:
I've read the entire story, acquired elsewhere, so I'll try to be careful to avoid spoilers and talk about the whole story in general terms rather than specifics.
The first point is that, while there have been a number of "Do-Over" stories published here, starting with the original (at least as far as I can remember) "Doing It All Over" by Al Steiner, most make the basic assumption that the character is sent into the remembered past, which means that there are remembered people, sporting events and stocks to bet on, and so on. Typically the goal is to "fix" the stuff-ups.
But a question that good authors ask themselves is, "Like that, but what if ****** changed?"
Double Take is a "do-over" with a what-if....
Jake is dying at sometime around 2018, and gets offered the chance at taking over a "younger version of himself". But the omnipotent beings making the offer leave out a few little details. Like that the new life is in an alternate reality and that he'll be "returning" to a variant of the current 2018, but with many of the same people around that populated his previous life -- just that some are older and some younger than he remembers. And the dynamics in his family are decidedly different, but for reasons that are not completely clear. An additional complication is that his "younger self" has just committed suicide due to problems that, on one hand are not clear to Jake, but on the other seem to be an undercurrent to his conscious existence.
The key to the story is the characters and relationships. Some of the people are people who he knew, more or less, the first time through life. But the social fabric in the "new" version of "today" is sufficiently different to occasionally "throw" the revived Jake with his attitudes formed in the 1950s. He has not fully adapted to the reality we inhabit as he has aged, and the "new" reality is a bit of a sci-fi look at how today could be different if some of the trends of the past twenty or so years had gone further than they have in *our* reality.
Part of what makes the story interesting is these subtle differences. It is similar to my own experience in moving to Australia from the USA. Much of the Australian reality is very similar to life in the US -- but, particularly when I first arrived nearly 40 years ago, every now and then I would hit something where my US shaped expectations would get turned on their heads. These sorts of experiences are one of the threads woven into the fabric of the story, creating some interesting twists.
There is sex, but it is not the raison d'etre of the story. If you are of the opinion that SoL is about sex stories, then this may well be one that you want to give a "miss". On the other hand, if you prefer a story with engaging characters and a plot that revolves around their interactions, with some sex thrown in for seasoning, then I believe that you will find this a great read. There are just enough plot twists to keep it from being too predictable.
This writer has tried his hand at a number of different styles of writing. There were some that were not to my personal taste, and that is OK, but this is one of the best stories by any author here at SoL that I've read so far this year. Give it a try, but remember that developing complex characters and relationships takes a few chapters, and be a bit patient at the start.
I'll note just in passing, that there were few , if any, typos or Grammatical errors. I really try not to be a Grammar-Nazi, but there is something about a glaring error that can drag me out of the pleasant haze of suspended disbelief and participation in the story's reality. Looking back I don't remember this happening, and this is a very good thing. We really should be grateful to be getting writing of this quality nearly free.
