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eaprilfish's review
1.0
Average, if not outright boring, "erotic" renditions of fairy tales. Was hoping for more creative re-imaginings, better writing, and actual eroticism. Didn't float my boat.
jdeternal's review against another edition
5.0
A typical collection of erotic fairy tales. I enjoyed most of them.
opheliajblack's review
2.0
Please note; my star rating on any book is completely subjective and limited to the label for each star.
1 Star I didn’t like it
2 Stars It was okay
3 Stars I liked it
4 Stars I really liked it
5 Stars It was amazing!
If I do actually have something to say about a book other than what my enjoyment factor was, I will write a review and share my thoughts. If I say I didn’t like a book but there wasn’t anything about it that I thought needed to be shared, then that’s it, I just didn’t like it.
If you’d like to start a discussion about a book or you’d like an actual review, ask any question you like and I’ll be happy to try and comply/respond.
Additional note; I do not feed the trolls. If you don’t have something constructive to say, or if you can’t say it in a respectful way, you won’t get a response from me. Ever.
1 Star I didn’t like it
2 Stars It was okay
3 Stars I liked it
4 Stars I really liked it
5 Stars It was amazing!
If I do actually have something to say about a book other than what my enjoyment factor was, I will write a review and share my thoughts. If I say I didn’t like a book but there wasn’t anything about it that I thought needed to be shared, then that’s it, I just didn’t like it.
If you’d like to start a discussion about a book or you’d like an actual review, ask any question you like and I’ll be happy to try and comply/respond.
Additional note; I do not feed the trolls. If you don’t have something constructive to say, or if you can’t say it in a respectful way, you won’t get a response from me. Ever.
fangirljeanne's review
2.0
The sex scenes are decent, but I’m a character girl and none of these ones had he depth to hold my interest. Meh
pamarni's review
3.0
A creative re-telling of several popular fairy tales. I would rate half of them good to very good.
dtaylorbooks's review
4.0
Oh yeah. You read that right. Erotica. Hey, I mention it in my policy that I'll have one of these every once in a while. But like catching Britney Spears acting civilized, the sighting is rare.
I am really out of my comfort zone with this one. Why did I select it for review? Because they were re-imagined fairy tales. I expected a little more plot with my porn but chalk that up to my own naivety with the genre. Especially in short stories, you're not reading erotica for the plot.
But I'm a little at a loss as to how to review it. Not because it's another compilation of short stories but because how the hell do you review porn??? Did it do it's job? Yes. Did it make me want to call my soldier boy in the middle of the night? Yes. Was it a bad idea to read this at work? Absolutely. But I don't know how to judge the writing.
I can say none of it was absolutely ridiculous when it came to naming body parts. No hot throbbing sausages here. The point of the work is to make you hot, not make you laugh. They were pretty much straight and to the point, the re-worked fairy tales they were set in were just mentioned in the background, setting the sex in a different place.
While the hotness maintained, I felt the stories becoming redundant. They lost their edge, I guess. At least with me. I think I was breaking down the sex scenes too much, though. Ultimately, as I read, they just ended up as some kind of penetration and end scene. The stories were cool but the sex was sex. It was as raw and animalistic as you could get. Again, erotica. You're not reading this stuff for the good stories.
The fairy tales I could recognize I liked how they were reworked. Dementing fairy tales is a favorite of mine. But this book just reiterated why I don't dabble into erotica too often. The first couple of stories are neat and fresh and exciting! But the more you read, the more watered down they became. That's not a reflection on the book itself, but just my own personal tastes.
So what would I rate this? I'd say a four. I liked the writing in every story, they were all hot as hell and if you're looking for some at-home excitement hidden behind a nominally inconspicuous book cover, Alison's Wonderland is it. Just don't expect to see books like this around her very often, as I said. They're ultimately not my thing.
I am really out of my comfort zone with this one. Why did I select it for review? Because they were re-imagined fairy tales. I expected a little more plot with my porn but chalk that up to my own naivety with the genre. Especially in short stories, you're not reading erotica for the plot.
But I'm a little at a loss as to how to review it. Not because it's another compilation of short stories but because how the hell do you review porn??? Did it do it's job? Yes. Did it make me want to call my soldier boy in the middle of the night? Yes. Was it a bad idea to read this at work? Absolutely. But I don't know how to judge the writing.
I can say none of it was absolutely ridiculous when it came to naming body parts. No hot throbbing sausages here. The point of the work is to make you hot, not make you laugh. They were pretty much straight and to the point, the re-worked fairy tales they were set in were just mentioned in the background, setting the sex in a different place.
While the hotness maintained, I felt the stories becoming redundant. They lost their edge, I guess. At least with me. I think I was breaking down the sex scenes too much, though. Ultimately, as I read, they just ended up as some kind of penetration and end scene. The stories were cool but the sex was sex. It was as raw and animalistic as you could get. Again, erotica. You're not reading this stuff for the good stories.
The fairy tales I could recognize I liked how they were reworked. Dementing fairy tales is a favorite of mine. But this book just reiterated why I don't dabble into erotica too often. The first couple of stories are neat and fresh and exciting! But the more you read, the more watered down they became. That's not a reflection on the book itself, but just my own personal tastes.
So what would I rate this? I'd say a four. I liked the writing in every story, they were all hot as hell and if you're looking for some at-home excitement hidden behind a nominally inconspicuous book cover, Alison's Wonderland is it. Just don't expect to see books like this around her very often, as I said. They're ultimately not my thing.
blacktag189's review
5.0
Yes - I did read this naughty, filthy book cover to cover. No - I won't tell you what it was about. But should you find yourself alone for a weekend, a night, a few hours...it might help you pass the time in a very steamy way.
jennifer_funknfiction's review
3.0
Take a bit of magic, a bit of folklore, a bit of darkness, a bit of humor, and quite a few bits of naughty and shake them all up. That’s what you get with Alison’s Wonderland.
It caught my eye because I had just finished talking about how much I tend to like recreated fairy tales in the paranormal genre. This is my first “erotica” novel, but it’s not really a novel. It’s a collection of (very) short stories inspired by myths and fairy tales.
Now, I’ve read my fair share of romance novels (mostly paranormal, but not all) that include sex. Some authors, obviously, do it better than others. I discovered two things while reading this book. First, I’m much pickier about fairy tale retellings than I realized. I tended to like the stories that stayed closer to the original. Second, I need more time (generally speaking) with characters before I can really appreciate the sex scenes. Some just seemed too rushed and didn’t have nearly enough story to create a believable connection. Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t like some of the more creative stories, or that I didn’t enjoy the hanky panky in some of the offerings. There are, of course, exceptions for just about everything.
Some of my favorites in the collection were:
•Fool’s Gold by Shanna Germain – A surprisingly intense story about desire and trust. Very well written.
•The Midas F*ck by Erica DeQuaya - I admit I almost wrote this one off at the title, but I would have missed out on a remarkably sweet story.
•An Uphill Battle by Benjamin Eliot – One of the funniest stories in the book, also one of the longest. I loved Zeke’s inner monologue during his many treks up flights of stairs. The ending was fairly predictable, but enjoyable, none-the-less.
•The Broken Fiddle by Andrea Dale – The Irish in me got all happy while Finn was playing his fiddle and spinning tales by the lake. I would really loved for this to be retold as a full length novel.
•Wolff’s Tavern by Bella Dean - This is the stuff that makes my paranormal romance heart go pitter patter.
•Rings On My Fingers by Alison Tyler – Another of the longer stories in the group. I’m not sure what fairy tale this represented, but the character and chemistry building was fantastic.
There were others I liked, but didn’t love, in the book. And quite a few I didn’t care for at all. Some that seemed to just toss characters together whether they were ready for it or not. Again, that could all be chalked up to my apparent preference for more build-up before characters get all frisky. I’d rather think that than the alternative. That some of the authors were more interested in the wham-bam-thank-ya-ma’am than what got the characters to that point.
I’ve decided that I will probably not read any other erotic anthologies like this in the future. Not because I dislike erotica (I plan on checking out a few of the authors’ other works), but because I just couldn’t sit and read one encounter after another without story in between. It seemed too forced and too shallow to me. It took me almost a week to read this book, and that’s very rare for me. Again, it’s (mostly) not the book’s fault. It’s not you, Alison’s Wonderland, it’s me. Really. Maybe.
It caught my eye because I had just finished talking about how much I tend to like recreated fairy tales in the paranormal genre. This is my first “erotica” novel, but it’s not really a novel. It’s a collection of (very) short stories inspired by myths and fairy tales.
Now, I’ve read my fair share of romance novels (mostly paranormal, but not all) that include sex. Some authors, obviously, do it better than others. I discovered two things while reading this book. First, I’m much pickier about fairy tale retellings than I realized. I tended to like the stories that stayed closer to the original. Second, I need more time (generally speaking) with characters before I can really appreciate the sex scenes. Some just seemed too rushed and didn’t have nearly enough story to create a believable connection. Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t like some of the more creative stories, or that I didn’t enjoy the hanky panky in some of the offerings. There are, of course, exceptions for just about everything.
Some of my favorites in the collection were:
•Fool’s Gold by Shanna Germain – A surprisingly intense story about desire and trust. Very well written.
•The Midas F*ck by Erica DeQuaya - I admit I almost wrote this one off at the title, but I would have missed out on a remarkably sweet story.
•An Uphill Battle by Benjamin Eliot – One of the funniest stories in the book, also one of the longest. I loved Zeke’s inner monologue during his many treks up flights of stairs. The ending was fairly predictable, but enjoyable, none-the-less.
•The Broken Fiddle by Andrea Dale – The Irish in me got all happy while Finn was playing his fiddle and spinning tales by the lake. I would really loved for this to be retold as a full length novel.
•Wolff’s Tavern by Bella Dean - This is the stuff that makes my paranormal romance heart go pitter patter.
•Rings On My Fingers by Alison Tyler – Another of the longer stories in the group. I’m not sure what fairy tale this represented, but the character and chemistry building was fantastic.
There were others I liked, but didn’t love, in the book. And quite a few I didn’t care for at all. Some that seemed to just toss characters together whether they were ready for it or not. Again, that could all be chalked up to my apparent preference for more build-up before characters get all frisky. I’d rather think that than the alternative. That some of the authors were more interested in the wham-bam-thank-ya-ma’am than what got the characters to that point.
I’ve decided that I will probably not read any other erotic anthologies like this in the future. Not because I dislike erotica (I plan on checking out a few of the authors’ other works), but because I just couldn’t sit and read one encounter after another without story in between. It seemed too forced and too shallow to me. It took me almost a week to read this book, and that’s very rare for me. Again, it’s (mostly) not the book’s fault. It’s not you, Alison’s Wonderland, it’s me. Really. Maybe.
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