Customer Reviews

Kamikaze Lust

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

It seems as though it's either one extreme or the other with this book, and I am one of those who didn't like it at all. If Sanders kept to one major plot instead of trying to develop three, it wouldn't be so bad. I think the author was trying to write a hip, cutting edge novel which got muddled down by trying to go in too many directions. I was bored by the time I was a quarter way through the novel and struggled to finish.

I should have been suspicious since this book has hardly been reviewed in the press. After reading it, it's clear why it has been virtually ignored. In short, it is pure dreck. There is lots of sex but that does not make for a good book. The author fails to develop any of the characters, choosing to try to titillate readers rather than engage us emotionally.

Lauren Sanders' first novel is terrific. Sanders writes very,very well and she weaves a story that is sexy, disturbing and, atpoints, laugh out loud funny. Once I got to the middle of the book I kept finding excuses to put the rest of my life on hold so I could stay in my chair and keep reading. This is a serious book about serious things that does not preach but, rather, gets its point across while entertaining the reader to no end. Now THAT is refreshing. I, for one, can't wait to read her next book. Sanders is a writer to cheer about. A good book.

I have read and enjoyed other Akashic titles but this book was a disappointment. Is Kamikaze Lust a trashy novel on the pornography industry? Or is it a love story between two women? Sanders can't decide, making for an unfulfilling, disjointed mess. It's too bad because Sanders has a flair for dialogue and description. Better luck next time.

I am quite surprised to see so many negative reviews of this book. I think they come from those for whom terms like "pussy" and "anal sex" are shocking. They see these words and think the author is going for shock value.

But for many of us, these terms are not shocking. Sex in all of its forms rolls with and influences the ebbs and tides of existence, and can be talked about in any and every way without being "shocking".

Thus, Kamikaze Lust revisits the relationship between the feelings of erotic attraction and feelings of mortal dread (fear of death). On one level it simply draws a parallel, a sort of yin-yang of sex and death. A young woman dabbles with getting her feet (and other things) wet as a porn actress, and at the same time she's thinking over helping her terminally ill aunt die.

Yet somehow this is still a quaint, almost homey, fairy-tale of a novel. It is like something Hermann Hesse would have written as a young man. Rachel (protagonist) experiments with both lesbian sex, and for her, yet unexplored types of heterosexual sex. In both cases, the scenes carry a wistful, wandering feeling. The character is venturing into the unknown and the prose confers this to the reader.

Kamikaze Lust is neither a gay/lesbian "coming out" story, nor a preachy "feminist" novel. It is the story of someone lost in the ocean of emotions, an existential story where a young woman who does not take the value of anything at first glance struggles to make what is temporary mean something. It's also about how she keeps her sanity when confronting the things in life so many see as either naturally horrible or horribly natural. In the end, Rachel seems to discover sex and death are both. How she makes this discovery is worth reading the book for.

Kamikaze Lust rates at the bottom of the list of all books I have read. That is not to say that it doesn't have a few redeeming features: the story line is unique, the characters could be interesting, and Sanders appears to have a sense of humor. However, she does almost nothing to produce an interesting novel from those features.

The development of her characters is extremely limited; it is almost as if we have to look at them as though we suffer from extreme myopia and tunnel vision. We learn little about them beyond the fact that they have limited working vocabularies, with most of their words learned in the gutter.

Sanders squanders about half of her book on what she supposes will be titillating bedroom scenes; in reality, that half of the book is about as arousing as a medical textbook. It is the sort of writing a twelve-year-old kid would read in the dark recesses of a library's open stacks or behind the sofa at home. Does Sanders not know that excitement in writing requires stimulating the imagination of the reader? In these parts of the book she leaves nothing to the imagination, essentially saying, "Here's your manual for this particular form of sex play: Step 1..., Step 2..., etc."

The only chapter in the book that has literary value is the final one. Finally, we get some insight on a couple of the characters (other than that they can or cannot successfully do heavy breathing). Interestingly, this is the only chapter in which Sanders does not attempt to be arousing.

The book received the 2000 Lambda Literary Award...utterly amazing! The gay/lesbian community is blessed with an amazing array of highly talented, sensitive, fun loving, eloquent people. Is this amateur effort really worthy of award from them? Are they giving out the award based simply on the number of pages in which one or more characters demonstrate that they may not be totally straight? To my knowledge, I have never before read a Lambda winner, but I would certainly have expected to find the winner at the opposite end of the literary scale!

I believe that Sanders is a frustrated new age "feminist." I put the word feminist in quotes because she does not represent to me what a feminist really is; only what some people think that they should be. To Sanders, it seems that a feminist must exhibit as many anti-establishment characteristics as possible (since by their definition the establishment is male dominated). So, she goes out of her way to write in a non-traditional way: her writing must be crude, it must be explicit, and it must have all of the worthy characters be female and all of the unworthy characters be male (unless those males happen to be gay...she introduced some very appealing gay characters, but utterly failed to develop them). In my opinion, this book does nothing for the feminist movement or the gay/lesbian community, or for that matter, Sanders herself.

This book is incredible. I kept reading and reading, loving Sanders' great dialogue, vivid descriptions and great sex scenes. The Thanksgiving scene is a classic, and the book is sexy and smart at the same time, a rarity these days. It covers such wide topics as family, love, work and death. Reading this made me wish I could meet the author and find out where she gets her ideas from, they are so imaginative. I am giving this book to all my friends as a gift and also recommending it to my book club.

What a compelling read. Emotionally intense, culturally relevant, and deeply and seamlessy driven by its rich characters. Reading this book reminded me of Rick Moody's Ice Storm--so sad at times I wanted to throw it across the room yet too engaging to put down until the end. This is an ambitious and often lonely ride through mainstream media and hardore pornography, a quest for love and identity, and yes, the heartbreaking fragility of one typically eerie nuclear family. Sanders has the heart and stomach to pull it all off and the sharp mind to tie it all together. I look forward to reading more of her work.

This first novel is hip, sexy and daring, blending such seemingly disparate elements as the porn industry, assisted suicide and the quest for a fulfilling relationship into a seamless whole. Though the book has a lot of sexual elements, it's more about the need to be loved. Sanders is an Erica Jong for the new Millenium.

I really didn't like the book, it did not have my attention and by the last half of the first chapter I was bored. I wouldn't recommend this book as a remainder. It would be best to use this book as a door stopper.