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shelovestoread81's review against another edition
1.0
So i read this book and tried to understand it but it did not make sense. It was setup that every other chapter was not about the main characters and that drove me crazy. I didn't need to know about other people. I don't think that I will read any more by this author.
apostrophen's review
3.0
I reviewed this for Erotica Revealed.
As a huge fan of short fiction, the first thing I want to say about Justine Elyot’s The Business of Pleasure is that it reads half as short fiction, and half as a novella – and that this “short fiction” half is a good thing.
The half that reads as a novella is about Charlotte – a submissive woman with a boring job who has decided to contact “the Number.” The Number is a business catering to the sexual desires of its clientele, and we see Charlotte live out her fantasy of being submissive to two men in the first chapter – and then return to Charlotte every other chapter thereafter.
Charlotte’s course takes her further and further into the machinations of this company, and she gets more and more involved with the two strange men who run the Number. That these two men are dominant sexually – and both arouse her in different ways – is the major crux of Charlotte’s story, and the central tale to the narrative in general. Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting to Charlotte’s story.
The alternate chapters, however, were where The Business of Pleasure caught and kept my attention. As I mentioned, each reads almost as a short story – though some characters will carry over into another chapter or step into the Charlotte narrative – and involves a single client of the Number setting up their first appointment with the company and finding release from their daily lives.
These chapters were more varied – though for the most part all the women in the book, with one exception, are submissive – and brought a more varied sense of sensuality to the book than the Charlotte chapters. I did find myself wishing that one or two of the women would have been a bit more sexually dominant, but the various scenes purchased by the women – the dirty mechanic shop, an exhibitionist window, a porn stage, a pleasure harem – weren’t cookie-cutter clones of each other. The characters themselves were also varied, and didn’t read as clones of each other. Though their fantasties were ones where they were treated as sexual objects, the women’s personalities weren’t all passive and meek. Even the men involved –mostly actors picked up by the Number – had some depth to them in a few of the non-Charlotte chapters. These stories were where it was at for me, and I’d say that if you’re a lover of short erotic fiction, they’ll suit you.
The Charlotte story itself left me frustrated at times, though not in an erotic sense. Throughout the whole story, The Business of Pleasure has scorching, well-written erotica. There’s the occasional turn of phrase that might make you blink (orgasms that take off like a jet pack?) but the overall scenes and erotic interactions are hot. It was Charlotte’s incredibly submissive character that I had trouble connecting with. Her dilemma (which man of the two men) annoyed me at times, since in my reading experience it seemed that she only emotionally connected with one of the two men. It left me feeling like it should have been an easier decision, but this isn’t to say it didn’t make sense for Charlotte to waffle. She is a character not very able to be forceful in any way, and making a choice was a part of this. Unfortunately, that left me more annoyed with her than empathetic to her.
If there had perhaps been a few stronger women in the storylines tucked between the Charlotte pages, this might not have stuck out so much. Charlotte is one of the most submissive personalities I think I’ve read in erotica so far – and between all the other women who desired to be treated as whores or tarts or sluts, it just hit a point of overload in my mind. I needed a woman – or two – to take charge to take the reader in a different direction for a moment.
If you like erotica with submissive women, however, this story will suit you more than fine. I didn’t realize I had this bias until about three quarters of the way through. As I said, the alternating non-Charlotte chapters read like high-heat erotic short stories – and I did enjoy those. I’m curious to see if Elyot has any short fiction collections, as I’d be interested in reading those.
As a huge fan of short fiction, the first thing I want to say about Justine Elyot’s The Business of Pleasure is that it reads half as short fiction, and half as a novella – and that this “short fiction” half is a good thing.
The half that reads as a novella is about Charlotte – a submissive woman with a boring job who has decided to contact “the Number.” The Number is a business catering to the sexual desires of its clientele, and we see Charlotte live out her fantasy of being submissive to two men in the first chapter – and then return to Charlotte every other chapter thereafter.
Charlotte’s course takes her further and further into the machinations of this company, and she gets more and more involved with the two strange men who run the Number. That these two men are dominant sexually – and both arouse her in different ways – is the major crux of Charlotte’s story, and the central tale to the narrative in general. Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting to Charlotte’s story.
The alternate chapters, however, were where The Business of Pleasure caught and kept my attention. As I mentioned, each reads almost as a short story – though some characters will carry over into another chapter or step into the Charlotte narrative – and involves a single client of the Number setting up their first appointment with the company and finding release from their daily lives.
These chapters were more varied – though for the most part all the women in the book, with one exception, are submissive – and brought a more varied sense of sensuality to the book than the Charlotte chapters. I did find myself wishing that one or two of the women would have been a bit more sexually dominant, but the various scenes purchased by the women – the dirty mechanic shop, an exhibitionist window, a porn stage, a pleasure harem – weren’t cookie-cutter clones of each other. The characters themselves were also varied, and didn’t read as clones of each other. Though their fantasties were ones where they were treated as sexual objects, the women’s personalities weren’t all passive and meek. Even the men involved –mostly actors picked up by the Number – had some depth to them in a few of the non-Charlotte chapters. These stories were where it was at for me, and I’d say that if you’re a lover of short erotic fiction, they’ll suit you.
The Charlotte story itself left me frustrated at times, though not in an erotic sense. Throughout the whole story, The Business of Pleasure has scorching, well-written erotica. There’s the occasional turn of phrase that might make you blink (orgasms that take off like a jet pack?) but the overall scenes and erotic interactions are hot. It was Charlotte’s incredibly submissive character that I had trouble connecting with. Her dilemma (which man of the two men) annoyed me at times, since in my reading experience it seemed that she only emotionally connected with one of the two men. It left me feeling like it should have been an easier decision, but this isn’t to say it didn’t make sense for Charlotte to waffle. She is a character not very able to be forceful in any way, and making a choice was a part of this. Unfortunately, that left me more annoyed with her than empathetic to her.
If there had perhaps been a few stronger women in the storylines tucked between the Charlotte pages, this might not have stuck out so much. Charlotte is one of the most submissive personalities I think I’ve read in erotica so far – and between all the other women who desired to be treated as whores or tarts or sluts, it just hit a point of overload in my mind. I needed a woman – or two – to take charge to take the reader in a different direction for a moment.
If you like erotica with submissive women, however, this story will suit you more than fine. I didn’t realize I had this bias until about three quarters of the way through. As I said, the alternating non-Charlotte chapters read like high-heat erotic short stories – and I did enjoy those. I’m curious to see if Elyot has any short fiction collections, as I’d be interested in reading those.
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