Have you ever had one of those nothing-to-do days? You’ve finished cleaning the house, the kids are at school/out playing with friends, your partner is away working/having an affair/out with friends, leaving you alone and bored. So you look for something to keep you occupied, something to stimulate you. Well, Basem Darwish thinks he has the answer. Summer Liaison is a romance novel with a difference. Unfortunately that difference is he has no literary talent. None at all. Not even a little. Not a sausage. My 12-year-old could have written a more interesting and coherent romance novel than this man.
This is a porno movie with less plot and even more unbelievable sex - unbelievably boring. I wouldn’t be surprised if porno movies are where he got all his ideas. Every two pages there is an extremely graphic sex scene, which I am not against, as long as it’s good sex. But this isn’t. It’s TERRIBLE! I couldn’t read some of it through the tears of laughter blurring my vision.
These sex scenes run the gamut from on a rock under a waterfall to – I can’t believe I’m going to type this – spontaneous lactation. I seriously doubt there is such a thing. (Whoever told this man that a woman would find it tender and beautiful to spontaneously lactate and breastfeed her man and then to have hot milky sex with him – I think most women will agree – was wrong! EUGH!)
Only about 50 of the 178 pages are dedicated to the plot, so it’s very patchy, but it goes something like this. Rickey “Hot Billionaire” Johnson is married to Jennifer “Body-No-Man-Can-Resist” St. James. They meet when she takes over the job of VP at his bank, sparks fly, or that is what we are told as they are already married when we meet them.
Rickey and Jennifer fly to Fiji on their honeymoon, only to meet Rickey’s ex-girlfriend, for whom he's still carrying a torch. Pamela “damningly gorgeous” (not my words, I assure you) Netter has been pining for Rickey since they split acrimoniously just out of high school. With nothing else to do with her life, without him to give her life meaning (I swear to god this man has never even met a woman!), she has built a hotel empire – hey, when you spend this much time on your back you want a nice place to do it in – and is now a billionaire.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Snarkattack
Woah, how on earth did this get published?! I trust your judgement, and on reading your review and somewhat bewildered!
Incidentally, did you know that men apparently can lactate due to extreme malnutrition? The author of this work may have had better luck if he had've added a male lactating sex scene instead of a female one, heh heh.
2 - A.L. Harper
You know what I wondered the same thing. Turns out it's self published. He should've at least paid for an editor for christ's sake.
3 - A.L. Harper
Oh yeah. I didn't know men could lactate. I don't think I wanted to know but thank you for the insightful information.
4 - Snarkattack
Yes, sorry for the completely useless information. It seems to be selling pretty well for a self-published book, at least according to Amazon. Not all self-published work is bad, but clearly this isn't the mould-breaker.
5 - A.L. Harper
No I have reviewed a couple of self published books that were good. They were fuckin' Tolstoy compared to this shite! Although, I did laugh a lot. But of course it was for the wrong reasons.
I guess you have to weigh that against how much it costs.
6 - Snarkattack
And if you happen to hit more...Dickensian times, you can add water and either eat the pages of said bad self-published erotica, or use it to keep your fires lit!
Now I'm just being mean. I do feel slightly sorry for the author.
7 - A.L. Harper
I feel sorry for him too. Poor kid. He doesn't have a chance of getting a woman. Not if this is what he thinks is romance.
8 - A.L. Harper
Or good sex.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
But A.J.,
It seems that Basem is making money off this trash. This says something for the high literary taste of the reading public, doesn't it?
Who cares about plots or the holes in plots when you have an abundance of holes functioning?
10 - A.L. Harper
Ruvy I'm shocked! You talking about functioning holes?! *laugh* I love it!
It is sad that this book is doing so well. It really doesn't deserve it. There are so many books out there with real literary value or at least more than a passing can't-look-away, car-accident appeal. And authors with real talent. Who deserve the recognition and money.
11 - Joan Hunt
Oh good Lord! Such atrocious writing and such great fun to pick apart! A.L., I'm going to the library to see if they have it...I simply must take a stab at this one, too.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
The more I think about it, the more I admire this Darwish character. Writing shit is easy. Selling it, on the other hand...
13 - A.L. Harper
I'm so glad you liked it Joan. You can borrow my copy. I would love that if you wrote another review to get another POV. Not to mention more hilarious quotes from the book.
Ruvy - You're going to make start to admire him don't do that! I guess it just goes to show that marketing is everything.
BLECH!
14 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Her lips said no no no, but her eyes said yes yes yes--and her voluptuous bosom, her 48-hour orgasm, the broken elevator, the signed discharge papers, and, for some reason, the roast beef.
Damingly damnable, but great review, A.L.
15 - A.L. Harper
Thanks Gordon! Yeah what's with the roast beef for breakfast? Who eats scrambled eggs with roast beef on English muffins? Am I missing some huge cultural shift from cereal or toast to red meat and un-fertilised chicken ovum?
16 - Christopher Rose
I'm still laughing over the imagined force of this guy's ejeculation! "the force of his release into Jennifer shot her to the other side of the elevator"
Classic!
17 - A.L. Harper
Are you glad to see me darling or is that just a canon in your pants?
18 - Jet in Columbus
Uh huh... And I was worried about my posts?
19 - A.L. Harper
What? This is as clean as this post could possibly be.
20 - Jet in Columbus
And that's saying something!
21 - A.L. Harper
Yes I've read your posts. They are very good.
22 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you, that means a lot. Have you checked out my personal blog? There's one there that I can't publish here you might like.
23 - A.L. Harper
Very interesting Jet. Well done.
24 - Scott Butki
Spontaneous lactation? Oh my god this is so bad it sounds campy.
25 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!