A review by balletbookworm
Kink by Garth Greenwell, R.O. Kwon

4.0

A really interesting, diverse, and wide-ranging collection of stories about kink - all sorts of kink. Some feel more confessional, some more fantastical. I really liked RO Kwon's story Safeword, which explored what felt like a mis-match in a couple, where the wife wants to explore kink as a submissive so they visit a dominatrix for lessons and the husband appears to be the one who wants to use a safeword. Garth Greenwell contributed "Gospodar" which also appears in his novel Cleanness and it is one of the best parts of the book (a bit terrifying at the end, but so beautifully written). Kim Fu contributed the amazing story Scissors, about a performance artist, where the writing is so sensual you can almost feel it.

I didn't particularly like the last story - Emotional Technologies. It wasn't bad, it just felt more like I was reading an art criticism essay (which was probably the point?) and it didn't do much for me after reading so many excellent stories earlier in the collection.