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Delilah Factor
The “War Between the Sexes” is over . . . the men won. There have been casualties. There have been scars. There have been secrets . . . Enter Forrest Baxter: The mystery man. Is he just acting weird? Or has he stumbled onto a real mystery?
Follow Forrest as he unwinds the truth of his strange alternate world, rediscovering love along the way.
Follow Forrest as he unwinds the truth of his strange alternate world, rediscovering love along the way.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 28, 2015
4 people want to read
About the author
Damon Norko
11 books6 followersDamon Norko is a writer, teacher and theater director. His distinctive brand of speculative fiction has been published in many places in the cyber-universe, and spans many genres.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Did Not Finish
September 18, 2017DNF - no rating.
Contains spoilers, proceed with caution....
***** last chance to back up *****
The Delilah factor is a risky, disturbing, novel of sexuality and dark motives… count me in!
Forrest could still conjure up the woman’s scent. And Forrest could still feel her soft velvety touch. It didn’t matter that she had been his sister. <– Okay, hanging in there, forewarned and all.
While I understand incest is a fact of life, I’ve only read two stories I could stomach that contained such content, this wasn't one of them.
I respectfully bow out… tag you’re it.
Copy offered as 'read now' via NetGalley
Contains spoilers, proceed with caution....
***** last chance to back up *****
The Delilah factor is a risky, disturbing, novel of sexuality and dark motives… count me in!
Forrest could still conjure up the woman’s scent. And Forrest could still feel her soft velvety touch. It didn’t matter that she had been his sister. <– Okay, hanging in there, forewarned and all.
"You’re the only guy I could ever stand," his sister whispered back.Seventeen-year-old Forrest deflowers his fourteen-year-old sister – count me out.
A century passed.
Forrest was mad with curiosity. Slowly, his fingers crept to the smooth skin of her belly. His fingertips found the serrations of her zipper. One tug; two. Her jeans slacken.
Their eyes met.
Ada had a hopeless lost expression.
But she did not stop him.
She was moist to his touch.
While I understand incest is a fact of life, I’ve only read two stories I could stomach that contained such content, this wasn't one of them.
I respectfully bow out… tag you’re it.
Copy offered as 'read now' via NetGalley
December 4, 2017
There are a lot of issues that are brought up with this novel. To start off, I have the feeling that I completely misread the synopsis of the book when I requested it.
Trigger warning: sexism, transphobia, homophobia, incest, explicit sex scenes, violence
To sum up the plot, there has been a huge War of the Sexes and males have won. Therefore, females have gone into hiding because the authorities are looking for them. This whole situation comes with a cost: they are reaching a point where there are no longer any children around. Also, whenever a woman is captured, she is put up as a prize which is won with a brutal fight. The main character was young when this war happened. He had a sister who he loved very much. VERY much. But she was taken to hospital and he never heard of her again. We follow his life years later: he works in a shipping department and he lives by himself in an apartment. However, one day he ends up meeting someone who is going to turn his life upside down.
I'm going to be honest and say that this could have been a really interesting plot if the whole thing with sex and gender would have been dealt with in a different way. My main problem here is that this is a very cis-normative story. Yes, there are instances when drag queens are mentioned but that's the extent where it goes to break with gender roles. Trans people are not mentioned anywhere. It is constantly mentioned that everything is destroyed, dirty and rough because there are no women around, which it's basically saying that only women are able to clean around and men are not. That sounds pretty sexist to me.
There is something else that bothered me throughout the novel: sexual encounters. Suddenly, just because there are no women, men are able to touch other men sexually without asking for consent. This is not touched upon at all how it should have been. The main character feels uncomfortable with that just because he is not really attracted to men so he doesn't want men giving him attention. However, it's not because he hasn't given consent but because he is not attracted to them. This could have been a great opportunity to talk about consent and about rape culture.
The first thing that threw me off, though, is that there is incest and that it's really hard for me to read about that topic without feeling a bit awful. The main character was the first sexual partner that his sister had. After that encounter she was raped by a lot of men at the same time. It should be noted that they were underage. Furthermore, the way that particular moment is described almost feels like he is raping her. It's just really uncomfortable.
I should also mention that sex is HUGE in the story. It's so important that they actually have breaks from work to have sex, there are rooms in every establishment where people can go to have sex whenever they want. Also, the way genitals are described made me laugh a few times. I have to say that I have never read a book with so many weird descriptions of a penis. It's a lot. The main character is aroused at the oddest moments and that is depicted almost in every page.
We can also find some sort of racism here. They way race is treated here bothered me a bit. I don't know exactly what felt wrong but it just did. It's probably because women are put in different categories. Black women are called Beyoncés. White women are Marilyns. Beyoncés are supposed to be rare because they are not cloned as much as white women. I felt like that was an attempt to talk about race but I think that it was not handled very well.
However, the thing that bothered me the most is homophobia. You would think that in a world where there are only men, relationships between would be seen as the norm, right? Well, that's not the case here. People are not in relationships, they don't fall in love. Everything is physical and most of the men are seen as not being actually attracted to men but they have the need to have sex all the time, so they pick the person who is closest to them. The only meaningful relationships are between men and women. There is not a single mention of a loving relationship between two men. Also, the more radical side of the women who are in hiding are lesbians who just want to see all men burn and die. I don't know, this just felt wrong.
*I received this e-ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
Trigger warning: sexism, transphobia, homophobia, incest, explicit sex scenes, violence
To sum up the plot, there has been a huge War of the Sexes and males have won. Therefore, females have gone into hiding because the authorities are looking for them. This whole situation comes with a cost: they are reaching a point where there are no longer any children around. Also, whenever a woman is captured, she is put up as a prize which is won with a brutal fight. The main character was young when this war happened. He had a sister who he loved very much. VERY much. But she was taken to hospital and he never heard of her again. We follow his life years later: he works in a shipping department and he lives by himself in an apartment. However, one day he ends up meeting someone who is going to turn his life upside down.
I'm going to be honest and say that this could have been a really interesting plot if the whole thing with sex and gender would have been dealt with in a different way. My main problem here is that this is a very cis-normative story. Yes, there are instances when drag queens are mentioned but that's the extent where it goes to break with gender roles. Trans people are not mentioned anywhere. It is constantly mentioned that everything is destroyed, dirty and rough because there are no women around, which it's basically saying that only women are able to clean around and men are not. That sounds pretty sexist to me.
There is something else that bothered me throughout the novel: sexual encounters. Suddenly, just because there are no women, men are able to touch other men sexually without asking for consent. This is not touched upon at all how it should have been. The main character feels uncomfortable with that just because he is not really attracted to men so he doesn't want men giving him attention. However, it's not because he hasn't given consent but because he is not attracted to them. This could have been a great opportunity to talk about consent and about rape culture.
The first thing that threw me off, though, is that there is incest and that it's really hard for me to read about that topic without feeling a bit awful. The main character was the first sexual partner that his sister had. After that encounter she was raped by a lot of men at the same time. It should be noted that they were underage. Furthermore, the way that particular moment is described almost feels like he is raping her. It's just really uncomfortable.
I should also mention that sex is HUGE in the story. It's so important that they actually have breaks from work to have sex, there are rooms in every establishment where people can go to have sex whenever they want. Also, the way genitals are described made me laugh a few times. I have to say that I have never read a book with so many weird descriptions of a penis. It's a lot. The main character is aroused at the oddest moments and that is depicted almost in every page.
We can also find some sort of racism here. They way race is treated here bothered me a bit. I don't know exactly what felt wrong but it just did. It's probably because women are put in different categories. Black women are called Beyoncés. White women are Marilyns. Beyoncés are supposed to be rare because they are not cloned as much as white women. I felt like that was an attempt to talk about race but I think that it was not handled very well.
However, the thing that bothered me the most is homophobia. You would think that in a world where there are only men, relationships between would be seen as the norm, right? Well, that's not the case here. People are not in relationships, they don't fall in love. Everything is physical and most of the men are seen as not being actually attracted to men but they have the need to have sex all the time, so they pick the person who is closest to them. The only meaningful relationships are between men and women. There is not a single mention of a loving relationship between two men. Also, the more radical side of the women who are in hiding are lesbians who just want to see all men burn and die. I don't know, this just felt wrong.
*I received this e-ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
December 20, 2017
Incest, underage sex, rape, homophobia, and a culture built around the fact that men apparently cannot keep it in their pants. I love edgy, risky stories, but this was far too much for my tastes. Into the DNF pile it goes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews