100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed (Black Cat Series)

Rating:
Summary: Mindlessly numb and not erotic
Review: As an italian young woman I found this book to be one of the most boring books ever written. She is aself absorbed young woman who seems clueless and not like any of the young italians I know. Maybe the translation was done wrong or her juvenile thoughts were that badly written. I just can't believe that this book was so highly anticipated. Sex is happening at a younger age but you should skip this one if you are hoping to be titilated because you won't be. Me and my friends use her prose as jokes.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Live Up to the Hype
Review: I always hesitate to criticize the prose to sharply when the book I'm reading is a translation. Still, I have to say that, though there are interesting moments in this "story," for the most part I was unimpressed. The writing to me was self-indulgent and childish, typical of a teenage girl's diary but not the ones that usually receive world-wide publication. Is this really the way a teenager thinks and speaks in the twenty-first century? If so, then they don't think and speak too differently from the writers of erotic novels in Victorian times.

From the reviews and interviews I've read, some of the popularity of this novel is explained by the fact that it is based on the author's own experiences. Considering that, it does offer the story a little more poignancy. But what is this book supposed to do for the reader, then? Are we supposed to be aroused by the eroticism or saddened by the poor protagonist's violations? In the end, various passages made me feel a little of both. But the key word there is "little." I was not extraordinarily moved in either direction and I didn't feel like I was left with any universal insights into the experiences of a modern teenager.

It actually bothers me that I was disappointed by this book. I was probably expecting a little too much from the hype in the articles I'd read. And I really dislike doing anything that might discourage a young person from picking up a pen and exploring their feelings in writing. It is true that journals and diaries can often provide inspiration for wonderful works of fiction and nonfiction. Rarely, however, is the journal itself a brilliant work. This one, I think, is not.

Rating:
Summary: Good Reading
Review: I bought this after reading a reading a review. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down.

The entire read leading up to the end was very good, then the ending was a surprise that left me feeling good for the main character and wanting more.

Rating:
Summary: An erotic and lively read
Review: I picked up this book yesterday afternoon and finished it by midnight the same night. as a girl who is the same age as the author, i was absolutely entranced by her retelling of teenage years. she is eloquent, descriptive and passionate (above all) i could hardly put the book down. From the first paragraph, i was hooked. She captured the essence exactly of what i've been feeling, and what most adolecent girls feel at one point or another. not for those with a weak stomach.

Rating:
Summary: REMARKABLE TALE OF LEARNING ABOUT PASSION
Review: I was led to this book since I noticed it was mentioned on the same page as the remarkable book I ran across titled SEX RING IN A SMALL TOWN. I say remarkable since it is obvious that we poor mortals are all looking for love and seldom find it. In SEX RING the author started out as a philanthorpist trying to help people stop smoking and ended up with them bringing to him other problems that they thought his skill at hypnotism might also help. As it turned out they did, and what occurs is instructive and apt to help people achieve greater happiness in life.

As in this book, the reader suspects it isn't exactly fiction, and both books are not only for adult reading. They are like road maps and warning signs both.

I highly recommend both books to anyone literate. They will learn a lot in most cases.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting view into a teen's mind
Review: Melissa P.'s mini novel is just a snapshot of what could be happening to someone during those weird teenage years. That it is about sex is just a coincidence - something that happened to this girl (as it has to many others, although maybe not as much). This time in our lives we try to find ourselves, and maybe the "herione's" problem isn't that she used sex to find true love, but that her main goal was to find the love of her life? Just an idea. I recommend this book to anyone who is old enough to ask who they are, whether they found themselves yet, or not.

Rating:
Summary: Fairy tail???
Review: The newspaper's and magazine's reviews made me buy this book. I read fast...but it was nothing but bad sexual adventures of a very young girl. Maybe with a lot of imagination. It made me feel a little sick in the stomach. Not what i expected from all the reviews...happy end,like all fairy tails!!

Rating:
Summary: Snore.... so uninteresting.
Review: This book was trying so hard. I don't think it is impressive that a 16-year-old wrote it, as it reads totally like a high school assignment. Melissa sometimes even forgets the "Dear Diary" angle and just goes on and on like it's nothing. I kept finding myself rolling my eyes at her alliterations. I didn't find it anything -- not erotic, not scandalous, not repugnant, not even interesting. The only thing I found it to be was a waste of my time.

Rating:
Summary: A very sexy cinderella
Review: Told in diary form, this is the story of a girl's growing sexual awareness and search for love. After an unsatisfactory sexual encounter at the age of fourteen, she commits herself to the idea that by giving her body to any man that comes along, he might taste her "rage and bitterness and therefore experience a modicum of tenderness." He might also "fall so deeply in love with [her] passion that he won't be able to do without it." On this flimsy premise that only a self-obsessed teenager would find profound, we follow her from one sexual encounter to another until finally she finds her Prince Charming, who is both tender and in love with her - and, not insignificantly, good in bed.

The story is something of a fairy tale aimed at teenage girls: the narrator tells us that she is ugly, but everyone else in the book comments on her beauty, including passing lorry drivers. There is a happy-ever-after quality to the ending. A Cinderella for sexually curious teenage girls, maybe?

I would not call this book erotic. Despite experiencing group sex, lesbian sex, rough sex, bondage, and viewing homosexual sex, Melissa P. does not dwell on sexual descriptions in the way an erotic writer would. There is a detached air about her sexual descriptions. It is almost as if she were aiming to write a book about her growing sexual awareness in the manner of Yukio Mishima in `Confessions of a Mask.' Yet, the ending is too pat, too much like a fairytale, to be autobiographical. The dwelling on her sexual encounters raises the suspicion that this is as much a sexual fantasy as it is anything else. She falls between two stools. Too much sexual fantasising to be truly autobiographical and not enough vivid detail to be erotic. The two sexy pictures of the author are a tad suspicious, as well.

Despite that, this book is enjoyable. I read it in one sitting - it is only 154 pages. The narrative pulls you along and if the story doesn't convince, it does give you an insight into what goes on in a teenage girl's head.



Rating:
Summary: Not erotic and not worth reading
Review: Well, I bought this book on the basis of some of the "literary" reviews. Sad to say, it's not worth the money. It's not erotic, it's not particularly well-written - although every now and then the author comes up with a good sentence or two, and it's certainly no master-piece. I guess the marketing's been pretty good though as it's sold a lot of copies. The only novelty about this is that it's ostensibly written by a 17 year old girl based on her own experiences. One recommendation - don't waste your money!