Reviews

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

jcho's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

3.0

vaibhavsh2624's review against another edition

4.0

The stories I enjoyed out of this collection are—

Best Friendster Date by Alexander Chee

Safeword by R. O. Kwon

Canada by Callum Angus

Impact Play by Peter Mountford

Gospodar by Garth Greenwell

The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror by Carmen Maria Machado

The Voyeurs by Zeyn Joukhadar

tomhardygirl's review against another edition

3.0

I enjoyed it it was partly comforting and partly boring

hanelisil's review against another edition

5.0

Sexy and diverse!! Will make a 🦴us book club book. 

ergospring's review against another edition

mixed bag but carmen maria machado reigns supreme

jsavage35's review against another edition

2.0

These stories were a little all over the place for me. Some were good, others not so great but I didn't love any of them and I'm not sure I got much out of reading this.

dame_samara's review against another edition

3.0

Did I pick up this book explicitly because I saw Roxane Gay listed as an author? Yes.
Did this meet my expectations? No...?

I expected more I guess, like the stories were honestly captivating and I found them truly interesting. But I felt left wanting it to be more SPICEY.
While the stories in this collection are something if showed up in my run of the mill book, I'd be less than pleased. But being this book is labeled as Erotica, and named Kink I expected more spice to this book.

TLDR: if you're looking for smut this probably won't meet your expectations.

joe30's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.0

dummehure's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Self harm, Lesbophobia, Transphobia, Sexual violence, and Blood

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit and Violence

I've decided to rate each short story by itself, so minor spoilers ahead! But I'd like to say a few words about this book in general. While I love the idea of a collection of short stories about Kink or BDSM in general, I feel like this book didn't satisfy the curiosity that idea sparked at all. A lot of these stories are very loosly baised on BDSM, and sometimes BDSM isn't even an important part within the story. Sometimes I couldn't even find the kinky parts of the story and was forced to think to myself "Is the queerness of the characters the kinky part?" which I truly hope isn't the case because that idea made me violently uncomfortable. I think the best comparison I could come up with is: This book is about kink the way that the Netflix show "Love, Death and Robots" is about love, death and robots. It's not NOT about those things but they aren't the focus of the stories every time. But even though I disliked quite a few aspects and stories in this book I'm still glad a read it and felt like my horizon was widened a bit. Plus it's always a wonderful thing to feel understood by other queer people no matter the circumstances. So here are the reviews of the stories itself, rated on a scale of 1-10 (because I forgot that I can only rate books in a scale of 1-5 on this app): The Cure 7/10 Best Friendster Date Ever 8,5/10 - lighthearted hot fun liked it Trust 5/10 Canada 8/10 - that's literally just a queer slice of life what about that was kinky, am I being sexualized? Oh, youth 7/10 Impact Play 7/10 Mirror, Mirror 9/10 Reach 8,75/10 Gospodar 6/10 Scissors 9/10 The Temple of Horror 8/10 - rollercoaster of a story, beautifully written, it felt both foreign and horrifying and comforting and familiar, it's truly giving the horror of your first queer situationship The Voyeurs 8/10 - it was good but for the second time reading this book i find myself thinking "Where is the kink?" and having to come to the conclusion that it's only in here bc the story is about trans people which is absolutely confusing to me. We aren't a kink?? bro come on. Good story tho, painful and raw and true i can very much relate Emotional Technologies 7/10 - nice read

meggio's review against another edition

2.75

I really liked the Carmen Maria Machado and Chris Kraus stories and will probably forget the rest