Bareback by Joshua Skye

More an horror than a romance, I think Bareback is a metaphor for the monsters you can find on your everyday life.

Alex is a small town boy who is swept away one night by a fascinating stranger, and exchange English student who is spending the summer. In comparison to the most mundane Morgan, Alex is really naïve, and so when Morgan asks to have unprotected sex, Alex just trusts his words. Of course it was not a good idea, and days later Alex starts to be ill, and Morgan is just disappeared.

More than the plot that is indeed quite linear and simple, I think the strength of the story lies on its contemporaneity. Alex is an everyday guy, he discusses of movies and politics, truth be told he is really an ordinary guy, just cute enough to catch your eyes, but probably not fated to anything grandeur, if not for his meeting with Morgan.

But I think the metaphor is also on his “bad” decision to have unprotected sex with Morgan, you never really know the person you are having sex with, especially if you met him just that night. In the end Morgan is not “the” monster, but he could have been, and Alex didn’t do anything to protect himself.

Quite traditional werewolf novel, as I said, more an horror than a romance, it seemed like I was reading something out of the late ‘70s or ‘80s.

http://fannypress.com/2012/07/15/bareback-a-werewolfs-tale-by-joshua-skye/

Amazon: Bareback: A Werewolf's Tale
Amazon Kindle: Bareback: A Werewolf's Tale
Paperback: 122 pages
Publisher: Fanny Press (July 15, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603815082
ISBN-13: 978-1603815086

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Circuit Theory by Kirby Crow & Reya Starck

Only a novella, this is a love story between avatars, but never something so unreal felt so realistic. Trust me, more than once it happened also to me to be in Dante’s shoes, wondering if my “activity” in the cyber world has effected someone in their real life. Being inconsiderate while online is so easy, because virtual reality is not real, and you always think the other one understand the rules. Have you ever wondered how it will be perceived from another when you click on that “unfriend” bottom? I seldom unfriend people because I always asked myself, how will I react? When I was a newbie of the cyber world I was more affected by this, now I learned to not care, most of the time, but still, it hurts a little.

In any case this is not your ordinary love story, because Dante and Byron are lover on a virtual world called Synth, and from what I understood, they have never met in real life. But their love story is as real as if they were in the same city at the same time, and as it can be good, it can also hurt you. Like in a very ordinary relationship, there are weak points you know you don’t have to touch, and of course Dante is always trying for unveiling Byron’s secrets. In the blink of few pages, what apparently was a perfect relationship, shows its bugs, and Dante and Byron will have to work hard to make it works, exactly like in real life.

Nothing of Dante and Byron non-avatars came out, if not maybe a loneliness they are trying to fill with their lives in a virtual world.

http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/circuit-theory

Amazon Kindle: Circuit Theory
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (July 28, 2012)

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle