Reviews - Venus in Furs (The Erotica Series)

386 reviews for:

Venus in Furs (The Erotica Series)

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

3.39 AVERAGE

mrmacaroni's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Masoch is a man after my own heart, one of the first to put into prose the desire to be stepped on by a pretty lady. He followed the book up by making his wife change her name to follow his character, then bugging her to cheat on him so much that she divorced him and wrote a book about how much he sucked. Add to this that he had the term masochism coined after him, against his protests, and we have a GOATED masochistic author, and one worth reading if only for the history.

shelivesinvenusstreet's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Despite the fact that this book is loaded with instances of Sacher-Masoch fetishising the foreignness of Slavic and Jewish people, particularly Slavic and Jewish women as the introduction goes into much needed detail into, I still very much enjoyed it. Loved all the physical and mental stuff that went on between Severin and Wanda. It paints BDSM in a ok ish light ig though obviously dated in various aspects. Severin was a good feminist for liek 5 seconds near the end which was surprising for a work written by a cis man in the 1870s. Joachim Neugroschel is a good enough translator that I could ignore the shitty american spelling, his translation is modern enough to be readable but not too modern that it feels out of place for the setting. Though a downside is that the scene where Severins friend reads his journal was a confusing to read bc it didnt transition into the story well

Content Warnings

jalynkay's review against another edition

2.75

challenging dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

papercutsandinkstains's review against another edition

2.0

medium-paced

Loveable characters: No

darth_anxious's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

noisyreq's review against another edition

4.0

fast-paced

lucylureadsalot's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

god fucking DAMN

men used to be real yearning little freaks and look at what we have now!!

i'm literally obsessed. this was insane, steamy, lascivious. nothing graphic happened and yet this was sexier than maybe anything i've ever read, or seen on screen in a long while (literally only 'secretary' comes to mind as comparably steamy). WHEW.

also a really fascinating look into the inner chambers of the dynamics between men and women in the 19th century in a way that's obviously and often censored, with a strangely incredibly modern feminist take at the end?

anyway this was freaky as hell and i loved every second. also, the appendix of the book is the author's actual contracts he made with women becoming their sex slaves? yeah and who else can end their erotica with PROOF.