Tagged: Sex RSS

  • coffeehousereader 7:57 am on January 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Giovanni's Room, , , , , Sex, Sexual Identity   

    Giovanni’s Room By James Baldwin 

    This book is one slim little volume, but by the last page it changes you. This story takes place in Paris where a man named David is trying to discover himself. His girlfriend Hella has gone off to Spain to take some time to think about life and sightsee. While Hella is gone David encounters a dashing young man named Giovanni who works at a bar where a lot of young gay men hang out at. David’s friend he is staying with named Jacques introduces David and Giovanni. The latter becomes smitten with David.

    David has struggled with his sexual indentity. He does find Giovanni handsome and somewhat mysterious. Giovanni insists that David come home with him. The room is small and dirty. It’s cluttered. At first Giovanni’s affection and adoration help smooth over the claustraphobicness of the room. One day Giovanni comes home from working at the bar and says he’s been fired. He is seething mad, but still stays otomistic for David’s sake. David is asked if he can send a letter to his father in NY for money. He says he will, but he puts it off. He struggles between wanting Giovanni and desiring a normal future married life with Hella who has become his fiance when she returns from Spain.

    When Hella is going to return David leaves Giovanni and his stuffy room to think. David is gone for a few days to think. When he first sees Hella at the train station he’s thrilled to see her. They go to her hotel room to reconnect after being apart for so long. They look each other over, seeing if the other is still as committed as before. Later they are walking around town and are in a bookstore when they run into Giovanni and Jacques. Giovanni is dramatic and angry. He wonders where David has been. David introduces Hella to both men and poor Hella doesn’t know what to think of it all.

    After Hella and David leave the bookstore Hella tries to get David to open up about who this Giovanni is. David goes back to Giovanni to explain that they are over. Giovanni cries and begs for David to stay, but David remains firm. David leaves with Giovanni’s sadness and bitterness ringing in his ears. Weeks or months go by and David finds out that Giovanni might have gotten his job back at the bar. He is hoping things are going better for him. But then one day shocking news hits Paris. One man is dead and where is Giovanni?

     

    • Addie 9:15 am on January 9, 2010 Permalink

      This sounds like a great book… one I would read. I need to add this to my never ending list of to-read list.

  • coffeehousereader 5:50 am on December 31, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Sex, Sex Education, Sex Toys, Shannon Ethridge, The Sexually Confident Wife   

    The Sexually Confident Wife by Shannon Ethridge 

    This book cover has it’s charms. It’s black with hot pink lettering. It’s the kind of book that sort of makes you feel self conscious if you’re reading it in public, but once you peel back the cover and dive in it’s like a wise older woman pulling up to give you sound advice on how to be the best sexually confident wife you can be. I bought this book at least a year or so ago, but never got the courage up to crack it open. I finally decided to and it’s taken me a good long while to finish it, but it’s been worth taking my time reading it.

    The author, Shannon, goes over so many different topics about sex I blushed a number of times. I never thought I’d hear a Christian author talk about anal sex, creating a private husband and wife porno for their own viewing pleasure, getting away for a weekend filled with just sex. I felt like I could breath again and that not all Christian women are prudes or boring when it comes to such a deeply personal topic. Shannon wrote with humor, honesty and firmness at times.

    I was a bit shy to admit I was reading this. Didn’t the title sound like I was needing major help? That rather than being a wild fun woman I was instead a frumpy wife who was clueless in how to please her husband? After confessing the title I was currently reading to a new friend I found out she sounded interested in it too and that it sounded like a very helpful book. Maybe I’m not the only one who could use a friendly written marital book on sex.

    I would highly recommend this book to any wife who needs a little encouragement, or a lot of encouragement. You don’t have to be a Christian to read it. Shannon is sensitive and doesn’t preach at you. She even uses the word Higher Power occasionally. I’d even recommend husbands to read this book after their wives do since it does discuss ways in which couples can enhance their sexual life and sexual communication. I’m relieved and glad I chose to purchase this book. If only I’d read it sooner.

     

    • Jeff 5:55 am on December 31, 2009 Permalink

      Thumbs up! Thank you for, um, some interesting evenings around our home lately…

  • coffeehousereader 1:02 pm on December 27, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Adoption, , Elizabeth Flock, , Sex, Sleepwalking In Daylight   

    Sleepwalking In Daylight by Elizabeth Flock 

    Samantha Friedman’s life seems perfect.  She has three beautiful kids, a nice house, a wonderful set of girl friends and a husband who has a good job.  Everything seems great except for the no sex part.  For some reason her husband hasn’t been in the mood for almost a year and it’s starting to get old.  Samantha’s life seems dull until  one day on her way to a lunch meeting she meets a handsome man on the train.  This handsome stranger seems to read her thoughts and asks her  one important question.  “Do you ever want to run away from your life and start over?”  Samantha’s thought these very thoughts before, but has never voiced them aloud until this mystery man named Craig asks her it outright.  She answers honestly and they exchange email addresses.

    Meeting Craig whirlwinds into a flurry of exchanging emails back and forth.  Samantha can’t seem to get enough of computer time and her kids are starting to wonder why she’s suddenly become glued to it.  Her husband Bob doesn’t suspect anything until one day he catches her checking her email and as soon as she hears his voice she tries to quickly close out of her email.  She acts innocent though and he doesn’t push the issue with her.

    At the same time this is all going on Bob and Samantha’s eldest child Cammy is dipping her toe into the goth scene and whatever else can help ease her pain of knowing she was adopted and therefore not truly wanted by her ’supposed’ parents.  Sadly Cammy found out she was adopted when she was too little to understand and it wasn’t the way in which Samantha had wanted her to find out, but Bob didn’t wait for the right time to tell Cammy.  Their daughter is bitter and angry and truly becomes the teenage rebel.  She sneaks out to hang out with the bad crowd at school and goes from the beautiful daughter Samantha remembers to a black haired, fully black dressed goth girl.  The Cammy they knew is starting to fade into the background.

    The realism of this novel rocked me to my core.  I usually find the way teenagers are portrayed as not realistic.  This book has Cammy talking like a real teen.  Not always pretty, but real none the less.  Reading about the choices that Samantha faces is also, very realistic. It’s not written in a cheesy tone or style.  This book deals with important topics such as drugs, sex, marriage, affairs, and family relationships.  I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book, but let’s just say it’s worth hunting down a copy.

     

  • coffeehousereader 10:51 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Affairs, Alcoholism, Blogging, , Secrets, Sex   

    Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett 

    This book was toted as a modern day Lolita.   I have never read the latter for personal reasons.  It peaked my interest on the 50% off table at Borders.  I just now finished it last night.  What an ending.  This big font book started out as sort of juvenile.  The way the main character Katie talks is very modern with a lot of cussing which got old after a few pages.  She’s the classic high school slut who also has a steady boyfriend Rory.  She lives with her mom and her mom’s boyfriend Mark.  She can’t stand Mark and thinks her mom can do much better in the boyfriend department.  Her father who has remarried is still a zoned out drunk who she visits once in a while.  He never says much to her, but she still enjoys going to visit him even if it has to be in silence.  After graduating high school she decides she doesn’t want to rush starting college so she defers. Instead Katie decides to start a blog about her daily life.  She becomes addicted to talking about her daily life and finds the responses she gets are sometimes encouraging and sometimes plain mean.

    Her first job at a bookstore out of high school is shot down by Mark because he discovers her employer is a sex offender. Whoops.  Katie hates to have to quit because she truly enjoys talking to and learning from her boss who seems like a nice man.  At this time she has this huge crush on an older friend Dan whose much older than her. She imagines she can whisk him away from his current girlfriend. So since the first job doesn’t pan out it then leads her to a job as a nanny for a man who interviewed her for entrance into a college she applied to.  At first being a nanny is tough, but she gets into the swing of taking care of little baby Cole. After awhile of being a nanny she finds out that she’s got a crush on her boss who is married.  Ah oh.  Katie chronicles her adventures of being a nanny and being torn between two older man.

    This book has its many surprises.  It took me about half way through the book to commit to finishing it. I almost gave up, but it definitely redeemed it’s self.I still can’t believe this book was written by a man.  The whole time I read it I thought it was written by a woman.  He does a great job of describing what it’s like to be a young teen whose addicted to sex, pot and being moody.  Not that I have experience in that last sentence except for maybe moodiness. :)

     

    • Caity 11:01 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink

      Sounds interesting. I don’t know if it’s something that I would normally choose to read, though…

  • coffeehousereader 7:19 pm on November 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Ellen Hopkins, , Sex, Teens, Tricks   

    Tricks by Ellen Hopkins 

    Friday night was another date night with my hubby.  We went to Chipotle and then over to Borders.  Going into a bookstore can cost quite a bit since I’m a complete bookworm and it’s always hard to choose just one book.  I had narrowed it down to either 2 off the buy one get one 50% off, or a hardcover of a new book that one of my favorite authors recently came out with.  A tough choice.  I chose my favorite author Ellen Hopkins.

    I have previously read her 5 other books which are each unique and different in their own ways.  Ever since I heard about her new book that was to come out this year, named Tricks, I really wanted to buy it.  Now I finally owned my own copy.  I devoured it and finished it this morning.  It’s a thick volume of 627 pages.  Sounds intimidating and scary, but she writes her novels in poetic form which is beautiful and sets her apart from other authors.

    Tricks is about 5 different teens who chose prostitution as a means of gaining much-needed income and sometimes some inkling of love.  Each teen’s story is hard to put down.  There are struggles with drugs, sex, family drama, religion and finding out who they are.  Ellen doesn’t write gently for those of us who have not experienced the whole teen drug/sex scene/street life.  She writes bold, blunt, honest and down to earth.  Reading this realistic of fiction could be hard to swallow. It could be considered depressing, negative and a downer of a read, but through reading Tricks I gleamed a lot of knowledge of what it would be like to be forced to live on the street, to sell my body for possible food and shelter.

    After reading Ellen’s books I’m always sort of in a thick cloud.  After that intense of a read it’s hard to go back to just blah fiction.

     

    • October Rose 9:54 am on November 19, 2009 Permalink

      Have you ever heard of Karen Hesse? I’ve only read one novel of hers–Witness–but it was excellent, and she wrote it in free verse. She writes for a YA audience and her books aren’t hundreds of pages, but she’s pretty amazing. :)

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