Customer Reviews

Lip Service

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Ms. Rose develops her characters with care and finesse. Even the minor characters peopling this world are three-dimensional and breathing with life. Every nuance of emotion, every scent, scene and sensory artifice is intact, leading the reader through a story that seems personal and real.

On the surface, Lip Service appears to be just another erotic story about a frustrated woman trapped in a sterile marriage and living a life of self-deception. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lip Service is a compelling headfirst dive into the deepest part of the human emotional complex that drives and motivates us to be honest sexual beings. It delves into a part of human sexuality that most people run screaming from when they confront the blatant, unvarnished part of their psyche that reveals raw human need. Ms. Rose has managed to write a story baring the naked 'self'. Not just about her secret self but all selves; the inner core of sexuality we all foster, hide from and secretly enjoy knowing exists. Lip Service compels readers to face the truth of their own false life illusions. It reaches deep inside and dredges up a part of you that used to be pure, honest and uninhibited. And, I, for one, rediscovered my younger wilder days of freedom of expression and the deep euphoria of honesty in sex.

I was really disappointed in this self-published novel by M. J. Rose. Although it's regarded as an erotic novel, I found the use of sex in the story quite unimaginative. The sexuality itself pretty stereotypical, almost in caricature, and it really is not used in a creative way to advance the plot.

The characters in this story are drawn one-dimensional. This is quite ironic given that psychiatry/psychology plays a heavy role in the story (the protagonist (Julia) works in the sex clinic run by a psychiatrist). The characters are rendered no more complex than cartoon characters, rather than the richly complicated beings that psychiatry/psychology shows us all to be. The real drama in life is that within ourselves, and how our own complexity interacts with others' - not the simplistic relationships of narrow characters that Rose has written.

My guess is that the author tried to do too much in this novel and ended up short-circuiting her purposes. There are too many subplots for a short novel: Julia's journalistic project to write about the sex clinic, her concern about her loveless marriage, something fishy going on with her husband's business, Julia's ambiguous relationship with an old flame, and her stepson's relationship with his girlfriend. With all these subplots going on, it's no wonder the author couldn't sustain erotic tension as well.

My own personal beef: I was severely disturbed by the ethical transgressions by proprietors of the sex clinic and the suggestion that Julia really could become a clinical paraprofessional with only a few hours training. Perhaps I should have suspended disbelief, but as a licensed counselor, I am quite bothered when the profession is portrayed as simplistic or unethical.

Rose lost a great chance at showing how Julia might discover her own sexuality while being caught up in the intrigue in the sex clinic...and show how her own sexuality played out in the various relationships in her life. She might also have tackled the thorny issue of whether "phone sex" really is sex...but no, in the end we are left with a rather thin story with neither substantial dramatic or erotic tension. Pity.

"Goes farther and Deeper than VOX" M.J. Rose's LIP SERVICE probably won't be a best seller, but only because it's self- published and falls into the netherworld of the erotic novel genre. That's unfortunate, because this book is more than one-handed reading-- it's just plain good reading with some super hot spots. The author has managed to incorporate details of the phone sex life into a literary novel with intricate plot, fully developed characters and dramatic tension. Woven into a normal story of a normal woman and her somewhat normal, troubled marriage, is the story spend her time and earn her livelihood making strange men come over the phone.

I highly recommend Lip Service as a work of fiction that deals honestly with phone sex while maintaining a fairly high literary standard. For those who thought Nicholson Baker made the ultimate and deeper by focusing on the real world of the real call girl.

Reviewed By Marcy Sheiner, editor of Herotica 4 and 5 (Plume) and the Write Erotica, due out in Spring 1999 (Cleis), and is writing Sex for the Clueless, to be published by Citadel in the fall of 1999. sns@sexsense.co

Since I run a popular website on sexuality and publish several adult newsletters, I read lots of erotica. This is the first book that I have ever recommended without any hesitation. The book has a fabulous plot that makes one examine their own sexuality. The book doesn't insult its readers the way so many adult stories do. Instead, it says loud and clear - that sexuality is a healthy part of our lives. (A lesson so many Americans need to hear). For me, Sam Butterfield's character was one of the most interesting but as a woman I could easily identify with Julia. I believe this is the book that so many women have been waiting for - an erotic story with spine tingling twists and turns that leave us aroused and thoughtful.

I guide a site on fetishism...and this is the best book of anerotic nature that I have ever read! MJ Rose managed to write a sexythriller without insulting the intelligence of her readers. I loved it!

This book could have been pretty good, but I felt the phone sex scenes were too explicit and close to what I would label pornography. It was predictable and sterotypical.

The author's editor did not do their job. It felt like a first draft.

Lip Service was well written, surprising, erotic (so much so that I was, unexpectedly, unable to read it in public) and the characters are well drawn. I especially liked the blossoming of the real Julia. It is about a married woman who starts doing phone sex for research and how this changes her life. It kept my attention through to the end, and I look forward to reading more by M. J. Rose.

Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. A daring new intelligent novel. I found myself annoyed with the 'good Julia's' personality. I enjoyed the later part of the tale much more than the beginning. It was her strength, empowerment, and openness that aroused me most.

After I turned the final page I longed for more.

I wasn't sure I'd like this first novel ... seemed gimmicky, at first -- phone sex being the catch.

Forget that cynicism. This novel grabs readers from the get-go -- it's a twisted tale of lives disintegrating (then rebuilding) in The Big Apple within "respectable" lives -- and a "respectable" sexual-services organization.

M.J. Rose holds nothing back. Her female protagonist takes us into the immediate intimacies of how an intelligent, compelling character can find her life and those she loves turned on their respective heads when nothing is as it appears -- and everything's at stake.

I couldn't put Lip Service down. It's a spine-tingling read for anyone who's ever wondered what it would be like to say or hear: "What are you wearing?" ...

C.B.

In Lip Service, MJ Rose has written about a sensitive subject with compassion and understanding. Her characters are realistic, quietly playing out the charades they feel there is no escaping from. It is troubling...yet riveting...a real page turner, holding the reader in it's gentle grasp, as we hope for a happy ending to such a tragic, hopeless situation.