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Swing #4
Swing Vol. 4
A Sunstone crossover event! Dan and Cathy are on a trip to New York and decide to visit the BDSM club featured in the Sunstone books by Stjepan Sejic. Hijinks ensue as some familiar characters from Sunstone meet our Swinging duo! And, oh yeah, Cathy is pregnant!
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 22, 2021
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108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 20, 2022
Sensing that their series Swing is reaching its logical conclusion Yisgan Li and Matt Hawkins declare Volumes 4 as the penultimate Title. This mixed race, loving married couple, still has a very Anglo looking Asian wife leading the no longer quite as hesitant husband into the pleasures of swinging. This is also a how to book, as have been the earlier editions, so it is, we are again told critical that the woman be in the lead at each widening in their choices of games. Volume 3 ended with hint that husband Dan might have his own sexual identity to play out, but this is not happening. He remains the handsome young side kick.
The prior volumes have given the pattern for the naked games and they are still staged to emphasize the erotic over the pornographic. There is an experimentation into pain as play. It is not entirely successful and the jokes are as always, at his expense.
What is more present in this edition is that the couple inhabit a larger world. We have seen that they have a mother-in-law problem and kids to consider. Now there is a very brief visit by the long missing father of the bride, some back story on Cathey and the introduction of a half-brother. In short, our couple are having to deal with the more typical emotions that are part of getting older . Dan finally has delivered his much anticipated graphic novel, and briefly faces the possibility of a female fan base, Altogether a major shift from bedroom spice, to real emotional issues. Concluded, at least for now, is a possible drama over an unplanned pregnancy and ambiguity over the father.
It is good to see a writing team that has delivered a consistent product, recognizing that they have enough story for one more outing and announcing that volume 5 will be it.
I wonder if anyone at Top Cow has considered the fact that sex is not just for the young and beautiful. They have in their team a lot of talent. Are they up to the giving us as beautiful, bodies that have given birth to more than one child and have spent more time at a desk than in a gym. Can they give hope to the those where gravity has made itself known? Is there time for the balding, the grey, and the paunchy? Artists distinguish themselves by taking up challenges. Maybe it time for a series that is not just beautiful people.
The prior volumes have given the pattern for the naked games and they are still staged to emphasize the erotic over the pornographic. There is an experimentation into pain as play. It is not entirely successful and the jokes are as always, at his expense.
What is more present in this edition is that the couple inhabit a larger world. We have seen that they have a mother-in-law problem and kids to consider. Now there is a very brief visit by the long missing father of the bride, some back story on Cathey and the introduction of a half-brother. In short, our couple are having to deal with the more typical emotions that are part of getting older . Dan finally has delivered his much anticipated graphic novel, and briefly faces the possibility of a female fan base, Altogether a major shift from bedroom spice, to real emotional issues. Concluded, at least for now, is a possible drama over an unplanned pregnancy and ambiguity over the father.
It is good to see a writing team that has delivered a consistent product, recognizing that they have enough story for one more outing and announcing that volume 5 will be it.
I wonder if anyone at Top Cow has considered the fact that sex is not just for the young and beautiful. They have in their team a lot of talent. Are they up to the giving us as beautiful, bodies that have given birth to more than one child and have spent more time at a desk than in a gym. Can they give hope to the those where gravity has made itself known? Is there time for the balding, the grey, and the paunchy? Artists distinguish themselves by taking up challenges. Maybe it time for a series that is not just beautiful people.
January 21, 2024
In this volume, we learn that it's okay to keep an unintended pregnancy because you can get a paternity test and of course you wouldn't want to get an abortion even if it wasn't your partner's. (Because this is fiction, the MMC is indeed the bio father.) Sorry, but this FMC just got a major promotion that involves significant travel and her kids are like 9 and 7, but she's just gonna roll with it? Indeed, she does!
Best yet, they take a break from lifestyle while she's pregnant, but sure enough, we get to see her suffering through long workouts and careful eating so she can "shed the baby weight" and miraculously have no breast or body changes after 3 pregnancies and breastfeeding for a year each time. Meanwhile the MMC sits around playing video games while his mother-in-law cleans the house and takes care of the kids so they can go on play dates.
Listen, I'm happy for these imaginary people that they made it work. I just wish there was a more realistic depiction of lifestyle with kids and pregnancy in the middle. One boundary the couple set that I think really helps is that they always play together. That at least eliminates the resentment I've seen build between couples that play apart and leave one partner to stay home with the kid(s). (ie non-carrying partners, usually men, get to go out during the pregnancy and postpartum period. if there aren't boundaries set and adhered to.) Apparently I'm still super annoyed at the surprise pregnancy and subsequent pressure on the FMC to "bounce back." Is there no one in their scene who would be cool with 5 stretch marks? Jeez. None of the polyam people I know have "perfect" bodies and it's a non-issue. Must be L.A. is different.
On to my begrudging completion of the series.
Best yet, they take a break from lifestyle while she's pregnant, but sure enough, we get to see her suffering through long workouts and careful eating so she can "shed the baby weight" and miraculously have no breast or body changes after 3 pregnancies and breastfeeding for a year each time. Meanwhile the MMC sits around playing video games while his mother-in-law cleans the house and takes care of the kids so they can go on play dates.
Listen, I'm happy for these imaginary people that they made it work. I just wish there was a more realistic depiction of lifestyle with kids and pregnancy in the middle. One boundary the couple set that I think really helps is that they always play together. That at least eliminates the resentment I've seen build between couples that play apart and leave one partner to stay home with the kid(s). (ie non-carrying partners, usually men, get to go out during the pregnancy and postpartum period. if there aren't boundaries set and adhered to.) Apparently I'm still super annoyed at the surprise pregnancy and subsequent pressure on the FMC to "bounce back." Is there no one in their scene who would be cool with 5 stretch marks? Jeez. None of the polyam people I know have "perfect" bodies and it's a non-issue. Must be L.A. is different.
On to my begrudging completion of the series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2021
I thought I reviewed this...so weird.
But this was another great volume. This one did a couple of time skips that made it jump a bit too much at times for me. However, once it settled down and got into the family drama, book stuff, and all that I really loved it. Even the gaming part I could relate to. I'm super sad the last volume is the last one :(
But this was another great volume. This one did a couple of time skips that made it jump a bit too much at times for me. However, once it settled down and got into the family drama, book stuff, and all that I really loved it. Even the gaming part I could relate to. I'm super sad the last volume is the last one :(
October 6, 2021
While I really want to like this comic, I feel like I've completely fallen out of it. It's not bad, it's just... very superficial, maybe?
This album spans almost two years in time, focusing a lot on the telling of what happens between chapters, even if the chapters have very interesting cliffhangers. It does start that album with wrapping up the cliff hangers from the last volume, then continues to focus on chapters told from a POV and not shared POV as previous - for the most part.
Sure, it shows the troubles of a marriage, as well as touching on topics like feelings around body image after birth and sexuality, and the possible dangers of denying what turns you on in favor of pleasing your partner.
Most of these chapters end in sex - which makes sense - but instead of feeling like there was as story to follow, this volume felt like a bunch of smaller snippets of erotica. And the Sunstone cross over was very small and felt more like fan service or money grab than anything else.
To touch lightly on the art:
The artist is expressive in small ways, which does fit the character of Cathy, although not so much for Dan, I think. The art is good, but I have to admit I find it a little flat, in general, and I was very sad that they didn't show Cathy's stretchmarks. They make a point out of her work of getting back in shape after the birth, which is good, but you don't see any effect of it in the art.
As I said, this volume felt very superficial for me. That said, for me, this whole volume felt like filler. Which is probably a combination of the writing as well as my interest in the story. I will buy the last volume when it's out, tho, considering there's only one left.
This album spans almost two years in time, focusing a lot on the telling of what happens between chapters, even if the chapters have very interesting cliffhangers. It does start that album with wrapping up the cliff hangers from the last volume, then continues to focus on chapters told from a POV and not shared POV as previous - for the most part.
Sure, it shows the troubles of a marriage, as well as touching on topics like feelings around body image after birth and sexuality, and the possible dangers of denying what turns you on in favor of pleasing your partner.
Most of these chapters end in sex - which makes sense - but instead of feeling like there was as story to follow, this volume felt like a bunch of smaller snippets of erotica. And the Sunstone cross over was very small and felt more like fan service or money grab than anything else.
To touch lightly on the art:
The artist is expressive in small ways, which does fit the character of Cathy, although not so much for Dan, I think. The art is good, but I have to admit I find it a little flat, in general, and I was very sad that they didn't show Cathy's stretchmarks. They make a point out of her work of getting back in shape after the birth, which is good, but you don't see any effect of it in the art.
As I said, this volume felt very superficial for me. That said, for me, this whole volume felt like filler. Which is probably a combination of the writing as well as my interest in the story. I will buy the last volume when it's out, tho, considering there's only one left.
December 15, 2021
I was unsure about the direction of the comic after the cliffhanger of volume 3. And while I didn't appreciate the soap opera pregnancy "Who's the father"? element, it did add a few interesting threads to the book, despite being resolved almost immediately. The 4 star rating is almost solely due to everything that the book does with Cathy's mom. I was not expecting to have a background character fleshed out in the penultimate volume like this. And not only her, but Dan's growth as a character towards her. It was a nice touch I didn't expect this late into the story and I appreciated it.
August 19, 2023
I didn’t care for the emphasis on family and how her dad was a good father. He wasn’t. He was a horrible husband and a terrible father. The emphasis that family is everything no matter how horrible they can be…no, thanks.
June 19, 2023
(Zero spoiler review for the deluxe edition collecting this volume)
I have an exceedingly long TBR pile. Years of books I've been looking forward to reading just sitting there, piling up. So to disregard them all and crack open a brand-new arrival is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure what it was exactly that made me think Swing would be worthy of jumping such a heralded and lengthy que, but boy oh boy, I sure balls'd that one up.
Lacking the sophistication, the character development, the charm of its cousin Sunstone, Swing is the generic, paint by numbers, mentally deficient relation to that aforementioned, much better title. It didn't take long after starting Swing to realise not only the mistake I'd made, but the scale of it as well. I would recommend experiencing such literary laziness for yourselves, but then again, I wouldn't want to be held responsible for you wasting your time or your money on this dreck.
The characters are the gold medal standard of cliche's. Married couple with kids have slowly lost the spark and for some reason, decide that banging other people will rekindle their romance / save their marriage. Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of this notion for the extreme vast majority of the population, but the lack of originality in the idea is delivered in the most ham fisted and expected of ways. Seriously, there are those blind fish who live in dark caves who saw every single painful element of this story coming a mile off. it's bad, its predictable and... did I mention it's bad?
If you're going to do slice of life / suburban drama, then your characters, their interconnecting drama and your plot have to do all the heavy lifting. When your characters are as bland or as unlikeable as they are here, then you're doomed to fail. Seriously, I've had flu virus' I've been more invested in the lives of than these two dime store, cardboard cut outs. And the cast of side characters are somehow even worse. It takes a special kind of sloppy writer to write dialogue, both verbal and internal this bad, but Swing has it in spades. I'm al most certain enough of my brain cells died whilst reading this to lower my I.Q by a few points.
There was one moment in this book that caught me off guard, and had me thinking 'oh dam, this is something. Let's see where this goes'. But it was completely wrapped up and resolved near to immediately after, as if it never happened. Weak. So weak.
Linda Sejic's art is fine. It's not to my taste, seeing as how an actual pencil clearly hasn't touched a physical piece of paper throughout the entire process. This digital nonsense never has and never will do it for me. And when it's drawn to such a limp and boring story, then even better art than this (like in Sunstone) would fail to draw me in.
Unless you are an absolute sucker for this kind of thing, or your standards are so low when it comes to characterisation or storytelling that you would need a search and rescue team just to raise them out of the hole they're in, then you really should avoid this with every fibre of your being. I've already sold my copy. Good riddance. 2/5
OmniBen.
I have an exceedingly long TBR pile. Years of books I've been looking forward to reading just sitting there, piling up. So to disregard them all and crack open a brand-new arrival is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure what it was exactly that made me think Swing would be worthy of jumping such a heralded and lengthy que, but boy oh boy, I sure balls'd that one up.
Lacking the sophistication, the character development, the charm of its cousin Sunstone, Swing is the generic, paint by numbers, mentally deficient relation to that aforementioned, much better title. It didn't take long after starting Swing to realise not only the mistake I'd made, but the scale of it as well. I would recommend experiencing such literary laziness for yourselves, but then again, I wouldn't want to be held responsible for you wasting your time or your money on this dreck.
The characters are the gold medal standard of cliche's. Married couple with kids have slowly lost the spark and for some reason, decide that banging other people will rekindle their romance / save their marriage. Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of this notion for the extreme vast majority of the population, but the lack of originality in the idea is delivered in the most ham fisted and expected of ways. Seriously, there are those blind fish who live in dark caves who saw every single painful element of this story coming a mile off. it's bad, its predictable and... did I mention it's bad?
If you're going to do slice of life / suburban drama, then your characters, their interconnecting drama and your plot have to do all the heavy lifting. When your characters are as bland or as unlikeable as they are here, then you're doomed to fail. Seriously, I've had flu virus' I've been more invested in the lives of than these two dime store, cardboard cut outs. And the cast of side characters are somehow even worse. It takes a special kind of sloppy writer to write dialogue, both verbal and internal this bad, but Swing has it in spades. I'm al most certain enough of my brain cells died whilst reading this to lower my I.Q by a few points.
There was one moment in this book that caught me off guard, and had me thinking 'oh dam, this is something. Let's see where this goes'. But it was completely wrapped up and resolved near to immediately after, as if it never happened. Weak. So weak.
Linda Sejic's art is fine. It's not to my taste, seeing as how an actual pencil clearly hasn't touched a physical piece of paper throughout the entire process. This digital nonsense never has and never will do it for me. And when it's drawn to such a limp and boring story, then even better art than this (like in Sunstone) would fail to draw me in.
Unless you are an absolute sucker for this kind of thing, or your standards are so low when it comes to characterisation or storytelling that you would need a search and rescue team just to raise them out of the hole they're in, then you really should avoid this with every fibre of your being. I've already sold my copy. Good riddance. 2/5
OmniBen.
August 9, 2024
After the last volume, which felt a bit too... "educational" for me, this one delves back into the story and plays out in a much more realistic and natural way.
Which I think was smart of Matt Hawkins to do. There has always been this balance in the book between telling a story about this couple and their relationship and also teaching the reader about this particular type of lifestyle. And to me personally, the book was always strongest when dealing with their relationship directly - and not so much of an instructional manual of sorts. So this was a breath of fresh air as we see them dive into some of the darker aspects of the underground sex scene, and generally just try to navigate the different things they discover together. Add to that the blossoming career of the husband, and you have a solid volume.
I think Hawkins got this book back onto a good path. Looking forward to see how he ends the story in the next volume.
Which I think was smart of Matt Hawkins to do. There has always been this balance in the book between telling a story about this couple and their relationship and also teaching the reader about this particular type of lifestyle. And to me personally, the book was always strongest when dealing with their relationship directly - and not so much of an instructional manual of sorts. So this was a breath of fresh air as we see them dive into some of the darker aspects of the underground sex scene, and generally just try to navigate the different things they discover together. Add to that the blossoming career of the husband, and you have a solid volume.
I think Hawkins got this book back onto a good path. Looking forward to see how he ends the story in the next volume.
May 24, 2022
Alright... I skimmed through a lot of it, because these people think and talk a lot and they like to repeat themselves. The idea of swinging or BDMS isn't really for me, but I still quite enjoyed this comic, though it gets a little bit... I feel like there isn't enough to carry the story. It takes care to educate people on the matter. Overall, it's fine, I'm not particularly into it, but I can't stop myself from continuing... I feel like it's time to wrap this up though.
April 5, 2025
Cathy is pregnant and she doesn’t know what to do…or who the baby might belong to. The suspense ends right away as Dan was the father. What a relief! Now, the marriage continues.
Family life has been getting rather dull, so the couple choose to do some S&M stuff in the Swingers Club. No pain, no gain, right? The sex scenes were wild and the story is even juicer! More, more, more! A good read!
Family life has been getting rather dull, so the couple choose to do some S&M stuff in the Swingers Club. No pain, no gain, right? The sex scenes were wild and the story is even juicer! More, more, more! A good read!
December 12, 2021
It was a nice summary of all the events that have taken place until present day and how the couple is coping with what happened at the very end of the last volume. Overall, I think they are in a good place and things are moving along. Volume 5 will be the last volume to end the series, although it almost felt as this one was the last one.
October 2, 2021
Good continuation of Dan and Cathy's slice-of-life swinger story. This is the penultimate volume. I love that even though Cathy gets pregnant/has another kid, it still focuses on their relationship and doesn't make it a huge focus of this volume. Excited for the last volume!
November 9, 2021
I still love this series can’t wait for the fifth one
November 10, 2021
A really good series, this is the penultimate part. A mild crossover with Sunstone and always good artwork and an interesting read.
November 16, 2021
Pleasant to look at. I enjoyed Ally's cameo.
January 24, 2022
These aren’t very good but scratches an itch I guess…
June 5, 2022
*3.5. A solid volume. Some good character development happened but I wish it would have expanded on that event a bit more. The crossover was cute, can’t wait to see how this series ends.
June 19, 2022
Nice to see Ally turn up.
July 19, 2022
More twists and turns. The series gets better with every new installment.
May 5, 2023
I have read this and the next volumes one after the other, so the story blends in a bit! But I enjoyed this volume, especially after the previous one! I didn't like volume three sorry!
February 19, 2025
Very cute series with amazing art
December 30, 2021
no thoughts, just fun, sexy times
the pregnancy scare scene seemed quite unnecessary bur overall it was still good fun
the pregnancy scare scene seemed quite unnecessary bur overall it was still good fun
August 10, 2024
They visit a bdsm club with Ally but end up preferring Lifestyle. Lots of family backstory
March 22, 2025
⭐ 2/5
I will be finishing the last book, but I need a book with more substance 😂😭 I'm tired of this whole series lol
I will be finishing the last book, but I need a book with more substance 😂😭 I'm tired of this whole series lol
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews