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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Trigger warnings: nothing beyond what you'd expect based on the title *shrug*
I was excited to read this for two reasons:
1. I absolutely LOVED Kate Lister's A Curious History of Sex when it came out and I was hoping this would be more of the same; and
2. I really like James' Tiktok videos.
I did enjoy this, but I think I probably would have liked it better if I hadn't read A Curious History of Sex, because it was fairly clear that Lister is both more established in her career and a more confident author where popular writing is concerned. This is not to say that this book was bad - it's definitely not! I read the whole thing in James' voice and had a delightful time.
However.
I feel like this didn't quite know what it wanted to be. The dinner party analogy didn't entirely work for me, and the statistics felt more suited to an academic text than a popular one. And while the statistics were definitely interesting, they did sometimes distract from the story James was trying to tell. So yeah. I don't think it quite found the middle ground between academic and popular writing that it was looking for, but I still enjoyed it.
I was excited to read this for two reasons:
1. I absolutely LOVED Kate Lister's A Curious History of Sex when it came out and I was hoping this would be more of the same; and
2. I really like James' Tiktok videos.
I did enjoy this, but I think I probably would have liked it better if I hadn't read A Curious History of Sex, because it was fairly clear that Lister is both more established in her career and a more confident author where popular writing is concerned. This is not to say that this book was bad - it's definitely not! I read the whole thing in James' voice and had a delightful time.
However.
I feel like this didn't quite know what it wanted to be. The dinner party analogy didn't entirely work for me, and the statistics felt more suited to an academic text than a popular one. And while the statistics were definitely interesting, they did sometimes distract from the story James was trying to tell. So yeah. I don't think it quite found the middle ground between academic and popular writing that it was looking for, but I still enjoyed it.
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
I was excited to read this because I (like many people) find Esmé's TikToks very interesting. Unfortunately, while I learnt a lot from this book - particularly about queer history - I didn't enjoy the "dinner party" framing, and the constant use of euphemisms made it difficult to understand and follow at times (I gather they were used in part to highlight how aspects of sex and sexuality were overlooked in historical manuscripts because more modern audiences didn't understand the euphemisms used, but even so). Even so, it is definitely worth a read if you're at all interested in sex and/or history!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
funny
informative
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content