Just over 27,000 people live in Laramie, Wyoming, for some reason. Michael is pretty sure he shouldn't be one of them. But then he met Debbie.
Size: 263 KB (49,119 words)
Incomplete and Inactive
Genre: Romantic
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Consensual, Romantic, Heterosexual, Oral Sex, Masturbation, Sex Toys, Slow, School
Review by Ivan_Ronical [other reviews by Ivan_Ronical]
Reviewed:
I hate this story. I hate it, hate it, hate it. But only because Dilettante decided to grow a life or something instead of finishing it. What a dick. But if something bad happened to Dilettante which prevents the rest of this story from being written, I will personally punch everyone who was disrespectful to this great writer right in the cerebellum. Starting with myself. Now to write a massive, but complete, block of text about this slightly-more-massive, unfinished block of text.
That's right. I stumbled and fell, kicking and screaming, mouse first into yet another abandoned story. Sigh. When will I learn? First it was Wraith, by Andrew James Gordon (an amazing read, and damn you AJG for not finishing it and for disabling reviews!). Then it was the No Strings Challenge, by Lametoad until he miraculously forged onwards and finished it. Then there were some others here and there that I've also reviewed, and NOW...
Now there's Laramie, by Dilettante, which is very depressing because it will almost definitely never be finished.
The story begins with Michael, a super-smart math whiz college-bound kid who is stuck in the middle of nowhere: Laramie, Wyoming. I suppose maybe I feel a particular fondness for this story given the fact that my hometown from when I was but a wee little Ronical had a saying: the only fun thing to do here is to leave.
The same thing applies to Laramie. Michael drudges along, dragged out to the boondocks by his divorcee mother for her job as a professor of I-can't-quite-remember-because-it-isn't-super-important at the local college. The point is that she's smart and perceptive, which prevents our main character from getting into too much trouble behind her back. Which he couldn't do anyway, because mainly he just shovels snow, aces math classes, doesn't have any friends, and chases after the initially-unattainable-but-super-duper-attractive Debbie: another super-smart math whiz college kid who is stuck in the middle of nowhere that is Laramie, Wyoming. But female. And babe-tacular. With a grrreeeeaaaaaaaaat rack. But really smart, so it's not just objectification or really obscure apocalyptic wish fulfillment.
Stroke: Fits the story. Good, but not a focus, so I'm sticking with N/A.
Technically, this is a pretty well-written story. No complaints. Yes, even I get to be lazy sometimes. Fine, I'll write more here if Dilettante finishes the story, how about that?
Plot: here's the confusing part of "Laramie": this story has a pretty subtle plot, comparatively speaking. In "The Best of Both Worlds", Dilettante beats the reader over the head with locales, hot women, sex with these clever plot dev...women, and job-related excitement. Okay, maybe the job stuff wasn't that exciting. But by contrast, "Laramie" is very bare-bones. There's a slowly building love story, and a subtle, but growing, plot regarding Michael's father. The as-yet unseen parental figure may or may not be in serious, life-threatening trouble: we'll never know because the damn thing ends right when it was starting to get going (AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH).
I think what gives this story so much charm and forced me to keep reading it - even when I wanted to throw it against the wall because I knew it was going to end abruptly - is how close we get to the main character. He's been dragged away from what the reader assumes was a good life back around Boston, and he lands in an unfamiliar and barren territory which is the opposite of everything he's ever known. One of his first thoughts in the story is caveman-like in its base nature (when paraphrased by me): ooh pretty! me want!
Thus begins his pursuit of Debbie, who I really wanted to hate and dismiss as a shallow sex-bot, but found myself grudgingly coming to like and love over the course of the story. She's young, smart, sweet, pretty, and emotionally vulnerable: all the characteristics which tend to draw in assholes like me as well as people who make porn. Damn you, morality!
Anyway, I liked her eventually, and I was rooting for Michael's relentless non-pursuit of her as he doggedly did not chase after her after being shot down on the first or second page. What? Yeah, it confused me, too. Just go with it though, somehow it works here.
I could probably go on for a while here about how I don't understand what makes this story so good and fun to read, but that in itself is probably good enough.
Don't read it, you'll just get pissed off that it's incomplete.
