Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Kink: Stories by Garth Greenwell, R.O. Kwon

9 reviews

dummehure's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5


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rosalind's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

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ecn's review

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adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

I absolutely loved some stories (specifically Alexander Chee, Callum Angus, Roxanne Gay, Carmen Maria Machado, Melissa Febos, and Kim Fu) and the others I absolutely did not like (basically all others I didn’t list). I simply do! not! care! about how a cishet man relates to kink!!! Also, someone needs to get Brandon Taylor to therapy!

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toffishay's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I really appreciated what this book was seeking to accomplish; even if I didn't love all of the stories individually, I appreciate this as a body of work that can help us better understand what kink is telling us when we are too busy to listen. My favorite stories were "Trust" by Larissa Pham, "Best Friendster Date Ever" by Alexander Chee, "The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror" by Carmen Maria Machado, and "The Voyeurs" by Zeyn Joukhadar.

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azariamckay's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Kink is an anthology and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I over its take on desire, sex, queer and trans love, and shameless sex. There were stories I wished were longer and stories I could’ve done without. I would preface this book with a couple trigger warnings: r*pe, s*xual assault, and transphobia. The stories get a little rocky at times and I don’t remember a single story ending on a happy note, which isn’t a bad thing for me, I tend to lean toward depressing reads. The compilation of writers for this novel was amazing and the styles of writing differed in the most interesting ways. Each story felt like it’s own but there felt like a common thread that grounded them all. I would reread a few of these stories in the future for sure! I’m interested in coming back to it later to examine how it ages and how I’ve changed with it.

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booksforsarah's review

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This book has fantastic representation of the LGBTIQ+ community. Unfortunately that’s where the positives end. 

Although the stories were written by different authors, there was not one writing style I enjoyed. The title is “Kink” so I expected more… we’ll… kink. There’d be mentions of it and then we’d be moving on to a different time/place/person and nothing really got explored. There were also some dangerously misleading statements in multiple stories, and although it’s a work of fiction, it’s at times written in a way that implies you can take it to the real world. 

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travelseatsreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

According to to the blurb 'Kink' is an anthology of literary short fiction based on love, desire, BDSM, and sexual kinks in all their glory with a bold new vision. This book is brimming with heavy hitting well known and accomplished authors so I was really excitied to read something fresh and enthralling. Unfortunately in this case the more well known authors sections were the ones that fell flat and lacked development. Yes, they look at various aspects within the kink world. However, disappointingly, do so at a very basic and dare I say it vanilla level. 

There are some absolute gems there and I particularly enjoyed the pieces by Carmen Maria Machado, Brandon Taylor, Larissa Pham, Peter Mounford and R.O. Kwon. Overall this is a decent read, however I feel would have been much improved by showcasing perhaps lesser known authors who have a deeper understanding of the world and how to convey it rather than just going with the well known heavy hitters.

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psi_fi's review

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dark emotional relaxing medium-paced

3.0


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_lia_reads_'s review

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challenging dark medium-paced

4.0


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