“You can’t put toothpaste back inside the tube.” pg. 101 Pleasure

This quote struck me because it defines how I feel when I read an Eric Jerome Dickey novel. Although I swore off his work after reading Sleeping With Strangers (not because it was bad but because he annoyed me with page after page of in-depth descriptions and then expected me to go out and buy a part II); I found myself searching bookstores, calling up “reading” friends, and traveling to three libraries in search of Pleasure. Why? Because I want to become more active in the book club I am a member of and this was the first book they selected that remotely moved me. And guess what, I was so deep into the book I missed the meeting.

Pleasure falls under the genre of Erotica and I am not a fan of erotica, at least not the erotica books I have read, which have no more value than a badly produced porn flick. But somewhere I read, with Pleasure, EJD had written a book of erotica that actually had a plot and pretty good story behind it, even if readers were torn…either you loved it or you hated it.

At moments I hated this book. Found myself skimming through some of the humdrum, repetitive sex scenes that often times mirrored the humdrum, relentless descriptions of thoughts and scenes that added no value to the story and merely served to stretch it out. At other times I loved the story because he painted a vivid picture of a character that I could relate to emotionally, even, if not physically. Then again this is my love/hate relationship with EJD. His ability to write a novel that flows so quickly that you get enamored with the characters as he takes you on a journey to places, here and abroad, that you never have visited; but just as quickly, you are agitated because he’s taken you off pace with pages of unnecessary words.

My only disappointment with Pleasure was my disappointment with erotica in general. Once you’ve described a sex scene once or twice the excitement is gone and it begins to feel dirty and nasty and I’m just over it already. Some things just need to be left to the imagination, especially when you have a pretty good story going. There is nothing sensual to me about people having sex with multiple people within the same day and not washing, not brushing their teeth, and definitely not using condoms in this day and age, and that is where my attention began to drift to as these descriptive narratives played out. I would have preferred more on the psyche of the twins and what made them tick. The book could have ended at page 421, and I would have been happy, even at page 433. But by the time I reached, “If my eyes had remained open….” on page 442, I had disconnected and was neither shocked, nor cared.

EJD gets 4.5 stars because I enjoyed the the story in its totality. Maybe I will resume my love affair with his work and go back and pick up Waking With Enemies.

Much Love,


Tracy

Tracy L. Darity is the author of He Loves Me He Loves Me Not and Love….Like Snow In Florida On A Hot Summer Day, For additional information visit www.TracyLDarity.com.