Category Archives: books/book review

Book Review: White Stains, by Anaïs Nin

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white stains coverAbout the book:
A lost classic of 1940s erotica returns! Written by Anas Nin, Virginia Admiral, Caresse Crosby, and others for a dollar per page, this breathtakingly sensual volume was printed privately and soon became an underground legend. Beginning with a breathless mnage quatre in Alice and ending with the concluding remarks of the uproarious Loves Encyclopaedia, this is a priceless collection of explicit yet sophisticated musings.

Review:
I read about half of this. I made it through the stories, but I just couldn’t with the Encyclopedia of Sex.

While I thought the writing was wretched, it is from the 40s, and maybe that was how erotica was written at the time. What do I know? I could see of the language as precursors to some of the super-cheese I still see in the occasional bodice ripper, but can’t say I enjoyed it here any more than I do in more modern works (less even).

I was also repeatedly dismayed at the stories themselves. We have a 5yo boy being molested. We have a woman being drugged and raped, then taken advantage of by a second man. We have numerous men getting women drunk to take advantage of them and we have a married woman in an orgy with not-her-husband (though that was the least eyebrow-raising one of the bunch). Plus, with the exception of the orgy, every sex scene is essentially the same. Nope, none of them tickled my fancy in the least.

I don’t think anyone believes Anaïs Nin wrote this. I know if thought this was a representation of her work I’d never pick another one up.

Book Review: I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

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i am legendAbout the book:
Robert Neville may well be the only survivor of an incurable plague that has mutated every other man, woman, and child into bloodthirsty, nocturnal creatures who are determined to destroy him.

By day, he scavenges for food and supplies, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But all the while the infected lurk in the shadows, watching his every move, waiting for him to make a mistake….

Review:
The primary story, I Am Legend, was pretty good. The rest…some better than others, but none that really blew me away.

Book Review: Omega to the Ranchers, by Stephen Hoppa

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omega to the ranchers coverAbout the book:

After being beaten and left in the woods, Ryan wakes up in the bed of two powerful ranchers who are much more than they appear to be. Eric and Tyler say they don’t want anything from him, that they just want to help him recover from the horrible incident that nearly left him dead, but Ryan soon discovers that they need him much more than they’re letting on. As he learns to accept their supernatural nature and the role he has to play in saving their pack, Ryan also has to grapple with the question; can he learn to fall in love with the two men after everything he’s been through?

Review:

This is Porn With Plot…no, that’s an exaggeration. This is just porn. The plot is so thin as to be invisible. There’s a twist at the end that attempts to bring the whole thing full circle, but it’s a joke, really. It fails in the plot department.

This is basically just 115 pages of sex. And despite the fact that we’re told these individuals are supposed to be falling in love or forming a bond or whatever, this is basically just 115 pages of frenzied, no foreplay, no build-up, no communicating fucking. So, I can’t even stretch it to erotic romance. It’s porn.

Some of it was hot, but, for me, it failed even as fapping material, as the things these men said in flagrante were so freakin’ cheesy they ruined it for me. As did the repetition of “dominated,” “owned,” “used,” etc. It’s not that the character enjoying these feelings was problematic, even though they often seemed to counter his thoughts during the few non-sex scenes, and when the baddie told him that was what would happen, it was definitely off-putting; it’s the fact that the SAME exact words and phrases were used in just about every sex scene, of which, as I mention, there were a lot.

I guess this is a matter of taste. Maybe some people like this sort of thing. For those, just know the editing could use a little work, but beyond that, to each their own.