Erotica for good girls

15 April 2014 - 02:00 By Fiona Snykers
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Based on the same concept as the Choose Your Own Adventure children's books, the Girl Walks Into. Series has become a publishing sensation.

Not only does it break new ground in the erotica genre, but the writing is appealing, fresh and funny. Readers who cut their teeth on the works of Eric van Lustbader and Judith Krantz will remember flicking through those books to get to the "good bits". With A Girl Walks into a Wedding they're all good bits.

The sex scenes are plentiful and sizzling, and the rest of the book is full of rollicking humour that keeps the storylines racing along. This is the main difference between the Girl books and 50 Shades of Grey. Sex is not a weighty business in the hands of Helena S Page. Rather it is an entertaining pastime - enjoyable and free from emotional angst.

The concept is easy to explain, but difficult to execute. The narrator sets up various scenarios with different sexual partners and invites the reader to pick one to read on with. The task of keeping all the threads untangled must be formidable. One senses the hand of Sarah Lotz (the 'S' in Helena S Page) in this, as she is a master plotter.

It is written in the second person: "You walk into the room ... you see a man in the corner ... you go over to speak to him". As the reader, you are encouraged to imagine yourself in the place of the girl, who is never minutely described. Apart from indications that she is fairly curvaceous, there are no descriptions of hair colour, facial features, skin colour or ethnicity. She is Every woman.

The sexual romps are fun, effervescent and focused on female satisfaction. They are graphic, but never stray into the more outré realms. Lovers of animal porn and hardcore S&M or B&D will seek in vain for representation here. And apart from a little light lesbianism, there is not much for the LGBTI community either.

What the book does very well is act as a corrective to erotica that portrays women as passive participants . They have sex for the sheer joy of it and, no, they don' t have to be in love to do so.

  • 'A Girl Walks into a Wedding' is available from Exclusive Books for R102. Snyckers's latest book, 'Team Trinity', was published last year by Modjaji Books
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