http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/7997.txt

Celestial Reviews 254 - January 31, 1998

"You Can Never Go Home Again" by SandMan (sandman@bitsmart.com). Guest review
by Mark Aster.

Have you read any Horatio Alger?  "Struggling Upward", "Making His Way", "Luke
Walton", "Only an Irish Boy"? Plucky lads, in hard times for one reason or
another, overcome obstacles through integrity and hard work, eventually
encounter benefactors who appreciate their good qualities and help them out,
and live more or less happily ever after.  Uplifting and optimistic stories,
good role models for youth.  But alas, no sex.

In "You Can Never Go Home Again", Sandman give us a Horatio Alger story,
updated to the 90's, and with some sex scenes.  This isn't a sex story, not
really; it's a story that has some sex in it.  Joey's parents have died in an
accident, and he has run away from the abusive uncle that inherited him.  We
get some nice clean first-time scenes in flashbacks (first masturbation, first
playing-around with another boy, first sex with a girl), and one very grungy
MF encounter that Joey sees while hiding out in an abandoned house.  But it's
not steamy sex, not sex meant to arouse; it's sex that furthers the story,
that advances the narrative. There's no sex at all in present-time involving
Joey, but there is some very nice romance with this girl he meets while
working at a hard-earned job.

There are some typos ("way to long", "some how"), and some awkward sentences,
and I don't think you actually have to have a checking account in order to
CASH a check, but on the whole the story is quite readable.  There's not much
complexity here; this is a Horatio Alger story, after all!  As the author
notes in the afterward, it's unlikely that many real runaways come out of it
this well.  But not all stories have to be documentaries, after all; sometimes
we need to be reminded what it's like when things go unusually well...

Mark Aster ratings for "You Can Never Go Home Again"
(remembering as usual that I may be a harder grader
than Celeste!):

Athena: 8 (above average, some typos and awkwardnesses)
Venus: 9 (for the story and characters, not hot sex!)
Mark: 9 (a cheerful story, nice reading)