{"id":1634,"date":"2010-08-01T16:56:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T21:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sistahsontheshelf.com\/blog\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2020-05-09T00:15:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T04:15:29","slug":"strapped-by-sharon-d-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/?p=1634","title":{"rendered":"Strapped by Sharon D. Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Publisher\/Date:\u00a0<\/strong> Lulu.com, June 2010
\nGenre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Romance
\nPages:\u00a0 <\/strong>126
\nWebsite(s):\u00a0<\/strong> http:\/\/www.strapped2009.ning.com<\/a>, http:\/\/7stagespublishing.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> \"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"½\"\"☆\" <\/p><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a stud, you\u2019re not supposed to fall in love with another stud \u2013 right?<\/p>\n

Who says? This is the premise of Sharon D. Smith\u2019s STRAPPED<\/em><\/strong>, a fast-paced novel following the attraction between masculine-appearing women, Silk and Taz. The pair have well-worn identities as dominant females, and typically date feminine women accordingly. This stud-femme dynamic is turned on its head when Silk \u2013 rocking baggy jeans and a Black and Mild between her lips \u2013 moves into Taz\u2019s neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Taz notices her next-door neighbor\u2019s swagger, and they quickly become hanging buddies. While they watch sports and hit the clubs, their friendship grows despite not knowing that much about each other\u2019s pasts. It all comes out in a game of basketball when Silk reveals her true feelings. Taz is taken aback by this admission of affection. She can’t believe her homeboy is attracted to her. Silk knows she has a girlfriend — a curvaceous beauty at that — and that their friendship is simply platonic.<\/p>\n

Silk feels differently, though. She has always had a thing for butch women. And while Taz tries to understand her friend’s seemingly-odd attraction, she eventually succumbs to it when the pair is thrown into a crisis situation.<\/p>\n

Taz and Silk find themselves in love and in trouble. Taz believes she\u2019s losing her edge and doesn’t\u00a0 know if she can handle the type of love that dare not speak its name in the lesbian community, while Silk’s past comes back to haunt her new relationship with Taz.<\/p>\n

Smith’s Strapped<\/em> shows the conflict some black lesbians experience with labels. Femme, stud, stem, bisexual \u2013 it all means nothing when it comes to how one feels inside.\u00a0 Taz and Silk had to leave the pressures of sexual roles behind to discover a comfortable home in each other. Their affair is unpeeled layer by layer, realistically so. With that being said, while Strapped<\/em> does a good job getting in Taz’s head, but doesn’t delve enough into why Silk loves studs. I guess that will be explained further in Smith’s next novel.<\/p>\n

So get ready because Strapped<\/em> will challenge all your perceptions of what love and labels really mean.<\/p>\n

Reviewed August 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publisher\/Date:\u00a0 Lulu.com, June 2010 Genre:\u00a0\u00a0Romance Pages:\u00a0 126 Website(s):\u00a0 http:\/\/www.strapped2009.ning.com, http:\/\/7stagespublishing.com\/ If you\u2019re a stud, you\u2019re not supposed to fall in love with another stud \u2013 right? Who says? This is the premise of Sharon D. Smith\u2019s STRAPPED, a fast-paced novel following the attraction between masculine-appearing women, Silk and Taz. The pair have well-worn identities as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[39,78,84,401,429,433,471,474],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7345,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions\/7345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sistahsontheshelf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}