Live by Enchantress
A story told from a different point of view. Not a pretty one and not for everyone.
Size: 19 KB (3,939 words)
Genre: Horror
Sex Contents: No Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Heterosexual, Horror, Cheating, Caution, Violent
Review by Jais Nereis [other reviews by Jais Nereis]
Reviewed:
It's hard to do a review of this story without giving too much away and judging from the synopsis, the author wanted to keep some secrets. I'll try to honor that as best I can and talk around certain elements, if I can.
I grabbed "Live" off the new stories list pretty much at random. A story "not for everyone" has a certain appeal because much like taking those self-help questionnaires in Cosmo, I can't help my compulsion to compare myself to the norm. I like a challenge.
What we have here is readily apparent as the story opens with descriptions of anti-abortion protesters and some brief rationale which admittedly comes across as sarcasm…So, given the story codes (and this is why I dislike codes) I have a reasonable idea of where we're going. I have to say I much prefer a well written synopsis to story codes any day of the week…But then again, I have no squicks anyway, so codes are only spoilers for me anyway.
I digress.
The narrative point of view is an interesting one and maybe even surprising in a pleasant way. It wasn't very difficult to figure out and I don't think the author intended it to be a huge surprise or anything, so I enjoyed the slow and relatively early realization of who was telling the story. I elevated my Plot score because of it, actually.
I didn't particularly care for the opening scene, the aforementioned protest, as the story developed. I found it distracting as I looked for a more direct connection than there seems to be. I think it could have been done better and the opening could have offered something more to the later events as the story reached its climax.
Otherwise, the writing is technically fine. The style is rather concise and offered with great brevity at times. I think some of the author's choices were perhaps more cruel than the story required and by that I mean the scenes leading to the climax are very warm, very comfortable. They're well written and produce a great sense of sympathy and even empathy perhaps, and so the ending seems to go over the top slightly by comparison. It seemed to be a little more hammer than was necessary and I personally would have gone a different way with it.
But that's subjective opinion and what Enchantress has given us is reasonably effective. There are a number of stories like this out there, for better and worse, and "Live" falls somewhere in the middle for me. I do recommend the story for readers who are looking for something other than feel good sex or happy romance, who like to contrast the more usual pastoral prose found on SOL with something dark and less than forgiving, despite the saccharine promise of redemption offered in the last three paragraphs.
