Welcome to the return of one of the most celebrated Internet novels of erotica. Sean Porter, soccer kid, is on a journey of discovery. Follow along as Sean continues to find his path through the minefield of adolescent relationships, while discovering his growing skills playing the most popular game in the world.
Size: 943 KB (178,748 words)
Genre: Erotica
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: mt/ft, Teenagers, Romantic, First
Review by orangeade [other reviews by orangeade]
Reviewed:
In "Playing to Win: Playing the Game II," the second book in the Rev. Cotton Mather's trilogy of teenage soccer star Sean Porter, the author takes his own game up a notch.
The writing is sharper this time around, and the plotting rises to the level of "page-turner." Mather juggles a large cast of interesting characters quite deftly, covering the final two years of Porter's high schools days during the early 1980s.
Coming off a cliffhanger ending to the series' first book, Sean finds himself making hash of his personal life. There doesn't seem to be any girl that he can't offend, although his greatest character flaw seems to be ignoring problems and hoping they'll go away. Otherwise, he's the same humble, likeable fellow from the previous book. But there's plenty going on in his life, from a crusade to free a good friend from the influence of the local greaser gang, to the seach for soccer glory in the state high school playoffs, to a scandal that hits a little too close to home. And in the midst of all that, Sean finally recognizes his true love.
Although Mather's prose has improved, there is the question of the story's "stroke value." The author has opted for very detailed tellings of the significant sexual events in the story, and too often one will be inclined to skim those passages. Partly that's because you'll want to find out what happens next in the story, but partly it's because the length of the sex scenes is sometimes excessive.
The bottom line, though, is that if erotic coming-of-age epics are your thing, then you'll be hard pressed to put "Playing to Win" down. And you'll be glad you won't have to wait six years for the final book in the trilogy, as original readers of the series did.
