Liquid Silver Books, $5.95, ISBN 978-1-59578-408-7
Contemporary Erotica, 2007
Amusing Amanda: Metamorphosis is book five of DJ Manly’s raunchy soap opera series Amusing Amanda series and I have only read one book prior to this one, the previous book The Agency. You see my problem here? I don’t have the advantage of knowing these characters as much as fans of the series from book one may have.
Anyway, the Amanda in question is Amanda Martindale, this rich woman who, from what I can see, make it her mission to hire gay escorts to perform for her voyeuristic amusement when she’s not trying to meddle in their emo-style soap opera. So, to continue from where we have left these pretty and often clueless pretty boys in The Agency, Hunter and Ramsay seems destined for splitsville because Amanda is sponsoring Hunter’s big coming out party while Ramsay drift around looking for love. Is it too late for Hunter, who realizes that he actually loves Ramsay? Meanwhile, Ciel and Scott go separate ways as well due to the not-so-useful advice of Scott’s therapist. If you want to know why these two are having problems, I’d suggest you read the previous books yourself because I’m really not the best person to explain things, being that I’m pretty much a guest that arrived halfway at a party.
With all her gay boys either crying or flailing around looking pretty but blue, Miss Faghag of the Century (With Lots of Money to Burn) naturally needs at least one new gay boy who isn’t sobbing or posturing with angst, so she goes back to the Agency to look for more. I’d think she’d know by now to source at a different place, given that the boys she’s paid for so far are drama queens with more hot air than sense, but no, she’s back for more. She meets Liam, the co-owner of the Agency who is understandably puzzled as to why Amanda keeps hiring these boys.
The author tries, but personally I find the drama the author has created for the gay boys in this story too much on the camp-and-popcorn side for me to take them seriously. If this is a TV series, it’d be right up there with truly horrible train wrecks like Dante’s Cove where people tune in only to see pretty slabs of flesh get naked and stimulate sex on TV. Me, I think characters who often behave as if they are acting out the LiveJournal entries of angry little Goth-girls everywhere aren’t really my thing.
