Lisa33

Rating:
Summary: Quirky, raunchy dark comedy...
Review: After his wife and kids are fast asleep, a bored lawyer logs into chat rooms at Literoticus.com to engage into some harmless, albeit naughty online encounters with the people there. He meets Lisa33 and is immediately drawn to her words. They have a lot in common and the cyber sex is excellent. What transpires is a dark, quirky story about the Internet chat rooms and the lonely people that frequent them...

Dan Allan has written a darkly funny novel about living a double life -- one of them on the Internet. The author delves into the reasons why some people interact with others online and go as far as changing bits and pieces of their identities in favor of something more interesting. The people in this novel live very sad lives in which they're unhappy with their surroundings and settle for a more tolerable and far more interesting existence on the Internet. Lisa33 is a dark comedy, but there is some truth, sad and pathetic as it might be, behind the satirical language. I for one loved this novel and I highly recommend it as a dark, quirky, raunchy read.

Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: Hilarious. Fast-paced. Sad. True to live. And in its way profound. Not to mention shamelessly erotic. What more could you ask for? Ignore the few negative reviews here. They missed it. They don't know what they're talking about. And try this book!

Somehow, in spite of the fact that this book is told entirely through chat scenes, instant messaging, and emails, it manages to draw you in to a full story, a variety of engaging characters, and, in the end, a passionate, erotic love story. In the end, as I saw it, it is about identity, the masks we create, the lies we tell ourselves and each other. In a way it isn't really about the internet. It is about humans and longing in the age of the internet. And it is about balancing one's sexual side with the rest of one's life. Did I mention it is also really funny?






Rating:
Summary: Love in the Internet fast lane... (3 1/2 stars)
Review: I knew what I was getting myself into. I mean, look at the cover! I really don't like instant messenging and email format when it comes to reading books, but I decided to take a chance anyway.

The beginning was slow and confusing. You are introduced to all of these annoying people, who are having sex in chat rooms. Basically it goes like this: Literoticus was supposed to become a place where people would discuss big ideas about art, literature, and life. How wrong they were.

Lisa is an oversexed, stay at home mom who met her husband at her father's funeral, ran off with him, and married him two weeks later. At that moment, she knew it was a mistake.

Tag is hardworking husband and dad who finds himself attracted to "Lisa33" and tries to get to know her, through messages and email. (This WHOLE book takes place with im's and email, just to let you know. There is not one phone or face to face conversation throughout.) He starts to fall for her. She falls for him. Neither one knows what the other looks like, has eachother's address, or phone number. All of it is very annonymous and impersonal, except where the cyber-sex is concerned.

And a lot of cyber-sex there is, with Lisa and Tag, and with the other participants that communicate through the website. Through all of the lies, deceit, and drama the others seems to create for themselves, Tag and Lisa seem to find a real connection and want to be together. But, will they step out of the safety net, leave their spouses, and actually do it?

The reason that I gave it as many stars as I did:
I really liked the email stories, particularly the ones that Tag wrote Lisa. He talked about how he first met his wife, a little girl he once knew, and some sexual "fantasies" involving Lisa. (Those did the job for me as well.)

A previous reviewer talked about how the conversations in the book were based on stereotypes. When I was 19, I was pretty involved with AOL. Chat was becoming popular. I became addicted and was talking to people across the United States that I would never meet. So many strangers, that I can't even remember the names now. It's very real. Unfortunately. It's also true how many of them want to "cyber." So, I think that this author caught that environment quite well.

Why I didn't give it more stars:
I didn't like how it ended. I was looking forward to seeing what happened (and I was imagining all of the things that COULD happen) but it didn't work. It didn't go anywhere.

I found a few typos. Maybe this is not the authors fault, but where was the editor? They were little things, but not little enough for me not to notice.

All in all, I liked how all of the things you thought about the characters at the beginning, did a 180 at the end. It was an entertaining and pleasurable read.

Rating:
Summary: I read this a while ago...
Review: I read this a while ago on a cruise. At the same time, really, that I read "Hot Plastic" which I have reviewed earlier. For some reason I just now decided to review it.

Lisa33 is a very good story about the lonely, lusty, often loser people in the internet-sex-chat craze, circa 1999.
Dan Allen has made two characters whose literoticus.com screen names are "tag" and lisa33." Tag is new to the sex-chat fad, and had only stumbled upon it because he was in a loveless relationship with his wife, and truly was a sad man looking for real love... not necessarily cyber-sex.

Many reviews (not necessarily amazon.com ones) have saidthat this book is very funny, or hilarious, or a "satire" of sex-chat. I disagree, I think it is more of a psychological book set in a chatroom-where many of these stereotypes reside. It really looks deep within the lives of the characters-unfortunately only through e-mails and chat. This is good, though, because you see it through the eyes of the participants, rather than a narrator or on-looker. In fact this book only is written through e-mail, chat, and one culletin-notice at the very front.
The other extra characters (the ones without major roll) define the stereotypical sex-chatter, and how he plays on the lives of others.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone that is interested in psychology, the internet, or both.
One problem: with the set-up of this book it makes it a VERY quick read, but thats not because of laziness or page-constraints. It is because thats how long it took to perfectly run it's course.

Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: I saw this book in the library and thought to myself, "oh for crying out loud, what will they think of now...?" So I picked it up and found it to be terrible. First of all, it is exceedingly short- filled with short lines and lots of white space. The exchanges are dull and predictable, and frankly, a little too easy to concoct. Having the tale in all cyber world leaves the excuse to not have good dialogue or well developed characters. The story was not interesting enough to be a novel. This might have worked as a short story, but that is all. The characters are boring losers who say nothing unique, have no insights into the world, and the sex scenes are silly. This should have had some of the charaters in real time, so they could be devt better, but then again, that would actually be WRITING, and we can't have that. This 'novel' isn't novel- it takes a gimmicky idea that isn't good or interesting enough to sustain a story. Unfortunately, with a gimmick, you need a good story and good characters to pull it along, or else gimmick is all the book will ever be. This book has neither. On that note, there was an article about this author in Poets and Writers, with him saying how it took him 20 yrs till he got published, and this is the trash he has to show for it. Please, can't we get some good writing for a change? This should never have been published! This is poor, gimmicky, underdeveloped writing by a novice writer with little skill. He seems like a nice guy, but nice guys don't for good writers make.

Rating:
Summary: A Twisted Little Book
Review: lisa33 is a twisted little book, but I liked it. The writing is all internet communications--chat room transcripts and email--and begins in a chat room at literoticus.com. The main "characters" are Tag and Lisa (the lisa33 of the title). Tag is a lawyer in Massachusetts who says he is unhappy with his marriage. Lisa is a stay-at-home mom in Georgia who is also unhappy with her marriage. After meeting in the chatroom, they quickly form a bond that soon involves the email equivalent of phone sex. This is a quick read about some pretty sad lives, although much of the writing is pretty funny. Dan Allan comes up with some fast-paced chat room conversations, with many characters and multiple conversations that are pretty amusing, but like I said, these are some sad lives. Because of the internet nature of the narrative, the characters are not fully developed in the sense that the reader can truly empathize with them, but because of the sad lives they lead, that is a good thing for the reader. As I said before, this is a quick read with some witty writing. Some of the internet sex can be fairly graphic, so if that is something you don't want to read, this book probably isn't a good idea for you.

Rating:
Summary: A Twisted Little Book
Review: lisa33 is a twisted little book, but I liked it. The writing is all internet communications--chat room transcripts and email--and begins in a chat room at literoticus.com. The main "characters" are Tag and Lisa (the lisa33 of the title). Tag is a lawyer in Massachusetts who says he is unhappy with his marriage. Lisa is a stay-at-home mom in Georgia who is also unhappy with her marriage. After meeting in the chatroom, they quickly form a bond that soon involves the email equivalent of phone sex. This is a quick read about some pretty sad lives, although much of the writing is pretty funny. Dan Allan comes up with some fast-paced chat room conversations, with many characters and multiple conversations that are pretty amusing, but like I said, these are some sad lives. Because of the internet nature of the narrative, the characters are not fully developed in the sense that the reader can truly empathize with them, but because of the sad lives they lead, that is a good thing for the reader. As I said before, this is a quick read with some witty writing. Some of the internet sex can be fairly graphic, so if that is something you don't want to read, this book probably isn't a good idea for you.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant in an under-the-radar way; a really fun read
Review: Lisa33 is an incredible book. It is easy to read (a plus) and entertaining. But it is anything but simple entertainment. Dan Allan is operating on a number of levels, all under the guise of "simple" chat(ter). He has created characters that are very alive, distinct, remind me of people I know - with only dialogue and internet dialogue at that. It is remarkable to sustain a whole, real book with "just" things people write to say to each other. The way the multiple conversations overlap in the chat room creates an incredibly hilarious, moving (even intellectually critical) montage that creates meaning on a number of levels. The juxtapositions are exquisite! The (...) content is not off-putting because the overall effect was not smutty stimulation, it is a look into people, the way we fantsize and communicate, and the interesting space between people called cyberspace. People say so much about themselves without knowing it or necessarily meaning to. Mr. Allan really captures the way in which people can reveal themselves to others while remaining blind to themselves. This author captures much that is elusive in terms of human longing, modern problems in connecting, boredom... this book can go as deep as the reader wants it to.