This week we review Scenebux by Cairo Smith.
“There’s all these clowns, and then one of them is a scary clown.”
Ben Etxina is 25 in 2025, a cusper born between “Millennial dorks” and “porn-fried Zoomers.” A programmer who’s allergic to screens, he lives as the kept boy of his immigration lawyer girlfriend, writing erotica for middle-aged women. From this pad, he launches a picaresque globe-spanning bender, both fleeing and pursuing a somewhat fictionalized billionaire and his shadowy “scenebux.”
We’ve choked down a decade of sermons wearing the skin of novels, and we love Smith for his refusal to take sides. He nails one strange, specific moment to the wall (late spring 2025) and drops you into a young man braced for his coming of age.
“This is what it’s like to be 25 in 2025. Almost no one will show you that. Read Cairo Smith.”
Next time, we’ll discuss Pornoland by Tyson James (AKA Krug) from Lost Arrow Press. Check it out.
