Reviewer: Benton Signed
Date: March 22 2015
Title: None
First Note: Your summary for this story is the best summary for any story I've ever seen on this site. "A fucked-up love story and a loved-up fuck story". That was honestly the main reason I clicked on this story at first.
Second Note: Philly is my city and it made me happy to see part of the story set here! I was even in the very same Wawa Amber was in a couple times.
And now to the story: this is an EXCELLENT story! The characters, situations, and method of storytelling are all very well done. I especially love how every other chapter jumped backwards and forward a year, because it is really interesting to see how Amber got into this situation. You get just a little bit more backstory each time.
I really like the character of Amber; she feels very real. She seems more like a person that actually exists than a character in the story, which makes her struggles that much more compelling. I think that Megan's treatment of Amber is an externalization of how Amber feels about herself inwardly, and that is very brilliantly done. She is also one of the most accurate trans-female characters I have ever seen in writing, and it was a bit of a pleasent suprise to see something like that in this site. The character of Megan is very interesting also--I see her as a very self-hating, bitter old woman who forces the "love" she lacks in her life out of Amber and is even able to delude herself into thinking Amber loves her even though no one in their right mind would love somebody who put them through that. Through abusing Amber she is able to externalize her own self-loathing.
The tone of this story is DARK, which I really like. This story is completely on the cynical end of the human experience, but manages to avoid falling into "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy", as TV Tropes would call it, which is a nice balancing act. By making Amber such a compelleing character we root for her rather than just feel sorrry for her.
This story is just so vile that I couldn't turn away--and I mean that in the best possible way. It's pretty remarkable how transfixed I was because many elements of the story I don't usually like in my GTS stories--obese women, older women, toilet scenes--but I found myself not caring because this story is so good. The sex scenes are so twisted and evil that I found myself really interested in them. The whole "love is pain" bit (I forget the exact wording) sums it up well.
So that is my tiny little review; I hope it wasn't too long. I very much hope that you continue this story!
Author's Response: I had an equally long reply (well, maybe not equally) to your review written, then accidentally closed the tab...
Suffice it to say, your review may have singlehandedly convinced me to continue working on this monster. It's honestly incredibly harrowing to write, especially because I know that the worst has yet to come, and I can fall into Darkness-Induced Writer Apathy (which is totally a thing, right? Nabokov went through it when working on Lolita, so surely I can too...), so it's nice to see that little crack of hope that keeps me going.
Thanks a ton.
