randi_jo's Reviews (420)

Trying to figure out how to articulate my feelings on this collection. The first words that come to mind are: "deceiving", "underwhelming", and "people were right about it being overwhelmingly heterosexual".

To extrapolate a bit on each...

"Deceiving" because the blurb for this book and the introduction by the editors made it sound like this book was going to have erotic stories. They really talked up sex, sexuality, and desire as well as how the stories included so many kinds of sex! Gay sex, fictional sex, elder sex!! Wow! That's not what we got in this book. Very few stories actually had erotica in them, maybe 4 or 5 max. Despite having the advertised collection theme as "Sex & Desire" there was almost no cohesion to the collection? I'm unsure how this is possible but Anonymous Sex managed it by, I guess, accepting every story that mentioned a penis. The story themes vary from actual erotica, thoughts on sexuality, sexual empowerment, stream-of-consciousness pieces that briefly mention sex positions, all the way to children hitting puberty.

"Underwhelming" because a large number of these stories were either obviously rushed or they ruined themselves by being plain. Were there kinks in this book? I can think of 2 stories in the entire book that featured some kind of kink, and only 1 of the stories made me go 'oh shit what the fuck' and that was Holo Boy with its

armpit licking

. Making an anonymous collection made it sound like people would write about their most fucked up sexual encounters, or maybe kinks they want to explore without people being @ing them and calling them perverts or something. Instead we just got a bunch of pretentious highbrow 'literature' that sometimes involved a penis being mentioned (no there was not a single story, even the lesbian ones, that did not have a penis involved - sorry).

"Heterosexual" because there are 27 stories, only 2 of them feature at least 1 lesbian (neither actually feature gay sex), 1 features a gay boy (there is no sex in this one), and 1 is fantasy-themed where MC becomes a hermaphrodite. These aren't really good odds and I don't know why it was boasted about in the introduction that these stories were so sexuality varied. It's like bragging about having the token gay friend, or something. 

Despite all that, I do wanna give points to the stories I liked, which were "One Day in the Life of Josephine Bellanote Munro", which seems to be in consensus with other readers, "The Next Eleven Minutes", "What the Hands Remember", "I Don't Miss You", and "Pearl River". Is this book worth buying for the 4-6 decent stories? No.

"Love Doll" and "The Great Artist" are currently in a no-holds barred match on which is more disgusting and pissed me off lol.

TLDR; authors go anonymous and the majority decide they wanna be as pretentious as possible about sex/sex adjacent topics and the editors apparently thought that was a great idea then lied about the stories all being sexy and erotic.

 Probably one of the best coming of age stories I've ever read. Highlighting the dubiousness of the transcendence from childhood to adulthood, how our choices in the past resonate into the future in both obvious and unpredictable ways. Felt the end to the side-plot was a little underwhelming, but overall the themes of growing up, feminism, and consent were strong throughout the entire book.

Also I loved Debra but damn, am I glad I don't know anyone in my life like her lol. 

Loved it. I did go in expecting to see more of a cross-reference with the Ghibli movie but was pleasantly surprised that it's much different (though not terribly). The prose has that British whimsy to it that makes it fun and the dry humor is perfect. Adding this to my list of "when middle grade books had depth and a wider audience".

 Was somewhat disappointed that Murderbot =/= HAL 9000, but I liked that the trope of an AI discovering itself and emotions or free will is being twisted a bit by having it through the scope of a bot who is very much introverted. 

2.5 stars because I feel disappointed.

Actually I think I'm just inordinately maddened that this was/is(?) considered gothic fiction. It's really not. In fact, I'd challenge that it's anti-gothic fiction or maybe even a bad satire of gothic fiction. The only gothic elements in here are what's borrowed from "The Fall of the House of Usher" and even most of those are blasted away by bringing in science; i.e. miasma isn't real because now we have germ theory!, the tarn probably glows because of bioluminescent algae!,

the dead reanimate because of a fungus similar to ones found in nature but we'll slap it on humans!, there is no need to fear the future because we know what anti-fungal is and dues ex machina'd some into the ending!

Just because the architecture keeps being literally described as "Gothic" does not make the story gothic fiction. I have been harboring this since page 15.

The fear of the past, the claustrophobia, the unknown, the supernatural -- these are things that are missing from this book to make it gothic - and by association, scary. I would hardly even call this book tense, but I will give it to horror because if anything, it does have body horror elements.

The prose itself was fun, the humor good even if a bit misplaced for the book's time setting. The inclusion of the

fungus was a pretty fun idea, even if the use of Cordyceps to create zombie-like animation in corpses/people has been a pretty big fiction phenomena since like, 2013 with the release of The Last of Us

.

I'll try out some other T. Kingfisher novels in the future where maybe I don't like the original work so much. But maybe I'm just not a fan of retellings in general. Guess I'll need to find out.

Strong start, great world building and creature mythology, and an interesting MC that engages you. It had some good themes on individual vs. community, generational trauma/history, and shared burdens. Not a five star read for me just because the ending was meh at best, maybe a bit rushed but just lackluster all around after the pretty bow was tied on the plot.

Probably not the best choice for my first Murakami book. It certainly makes you think, almost each sentence it's own allusion to a different possibility, though maybe I just don't like the translation (Ted Goossen) because it's. . . dry at best. Might be biased since I just came off finishing a much more emotionally engaging book.

Overall feelings: Eh.

Walked into this one blind and honestly I loved every bit of it. Was expecting horror, but the humor and tear-jerking moments came to me as a surprise for the genre and premise. 

I thought

killing off the most likable character who doubles as the comic relief

was such a ballsy move, yet it ended so, so perfectly. Just amazing. 10/10 would recommend.

Woman who masks to get by vs. an incel. The incel loses.

Honestly a great examination of societal expectations of men and women, and of conformity and if you don't/cannot. Not what I expected based on what I've heard of this one through the grapevine and am pleasantly surprised.

Cute, just enough plot to move the story along, but nothing crazy. Epilogue felt unsatisfying but that's just because I'm a slut for retribution and that was lacking. Wish that the "short story" at the end just remained cut from the OG manuscript and am very glad it wasn't the start of the book, as it seems it likely was, because talk about dry. Surprisingly very wholesome lesbian rep.