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Date Posted: 17:24:47 10/04/25 Sat
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.196.42.128
Subject: Re: (SFFR) 'The Smoke I Couldn't Escape: A Summer of Cigarettes' (Anon.) - A Review (Corrected)
In reply to: Curious 's message, "(SFFR) 'The Smoke I Couldn’t Escape: A Summer of Cigarettes' (Anon.) - A Review" on 14:42:45 10/04/25 Sat
Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers
'The Smoke I Couldn’t Escape: A Summer of Cigarettes' (Anon.) - A Review
Part One - The Author
The true author of the story is unknown, it may have been the creator of the 'Women's Stories' YouTube channel, but equally given that one of the other stories posted on the channel(1) was stolen from the Noble Leaf Library it's possible that this story was stolen from another as yet unidentified source.(6) A further possibility is that the story was generated algorithmically using a large-language model. As of the time of this review, no evidence has been uncovered to clarify this point.
Part Two - 'The Smoke I Couldn’t Escape: A Summer of Cigarettes'
The story was uploaded to YouTube in audio form on Mar 7, 2025, the same day that 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me', the subject of my previous review was released. In this story Lily, the narrator describes how Diane, her mother and Tara(2), her mothers smoking buddy introduced the narrator to the smoking habit.
Part Three - Comments
Like 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me', this story begins with a clear statement of where the story is taking place, Ashville, North Carolina starting in June of an unknown year, ending in October of the same year. The narrator gives her age as 15 at story start, also indicating that she's been part of a church group since January.
It's this involvement in the church group that provides an initial conflict at the start of the story, it's made clear that the narrator has become heavily invested in her faith and this has strengthened her disapproval of her mothers smoking which she now sees as an affront to God. In the ensuing argument her mother gives some details on her smoking history(3) before Lily storms off.
This ultimately leads to Diane and her smoking buddy Tara taking matters into their own hands and torturing Lily into smoking a first cigarette. Thereafter until the habit takes a hold it's fear of Tara that causes her to smoke additional cigarettes.
There is a distinct feeling in the narration that at start Lily is a self-righteous prig, her embrace of God having driven away her friends and further estranged her from her mother but she doesn't care. Tara and her mothers actions shatter all that leaving a void that not even the habit can completely fill.
The scene where Diane and Tara force the habit on Lily is almost as brutal as the moment in SStoryman's 'Trina's Tale'(4) where the character Kristin is tortured by her siblings and boyfriend to get her to resume the habit. In this story, Lily's arrogance provides better justifications for what happens than in SStoryman's earlier work, but the consequences are far more realistic than anything SStoryman ever contemplated.(5) It also a scene that raises questions on who the dominant partner is in the Tara/Diane friendship, certainly a later scene where Diane tries to apologise to Lily and gets rebuffed implies that Tara was the instigator.
The narrators return to school sees her deciding to join the smokers outside school, interestingly the leader of that group is called Shelly, the same name used for a possibly similar character in 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me', although the two stories are set in different states.
The ending, abrupt sounding as it is(7) cannot be construed as a positive one. Lily's experiences have given her a conflicted relationship with the habit at best, like Krista in An4's 'Encouragement'(8) or Kelli in SStoryman's 'Turkish Delight'(9) she's someone who needs to be shown the positive side of her relationship with habit, a view that neither her mother nor Tara can give her given their actions.
In conclusion, this is a rather dark story dealing as it does with parental betrayal and mayhem. It may not have originated as a work of smoking fetish fiction, but it's now become one. The end state of the narrator is something that authors might want to look at as the starting point for a story and it's to them that I recommend this work. General readers should approach this one with caution.
Notes:
1. 'The Six Weeks' by Stu Bash, the story can be found in Vol. 6 of the Noble Leaf Library, a review by G_T, can be found in Vol. 16 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
2. The name is spelled variously as Tara, Terra and Terror in the subtitling.
3. Diane states she started smoking at age 13, she's been smoking for longer than Lily has been alive and she does not plan to quit, no matter what Lily says.
4. The story can be found in Vol. 3 of the 'SStoryman Anthology' part of the Noble Leaf Library, a review can be found in Vol. 28 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
5. A common plot idea in SStoryman's fiction is that no matter how someone has been bought to the habit, once they embrace it they approve of whatever was done to get them to that point. It's very clear in this story that while Lily has become a pack-a-day smoker by the end, how she got there has worsened her relationship with her mother, not improved it.
6. In the appendix to my review of 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me' I speculated that the other first person stories on the 'Women's Stories' YouTube channel may have been based off Anti-Smoking testimonials.
7. The last line in the story is "The Marlboro Reds owned me now, a chain." a sentence that does not feel complete.
8. The story can be found in Vol. 6 of the Noble Leaf Library, the review can be found in Vol. 5 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
9. The story can be found in Vol. 3 of the 'SStoryman Anthology' part of the Noble Leaf Library, a review can be found in Vol. 24 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
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