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A review by rosseroo
Sex Dungeon For Sale! by Patrick Wensink
4.0
Each of the eleven short stories in this small collection are built on a lone imaginative premise, upon which the story succeeds or fails. They can be breezed through in about an hour, and while I found myself chuckling at almost every piece, they're so thin that they generally fail to leave much of an impression. They remind me of the micro-fiction and humor web sites that friends periodically send me links to. Momentarily amusing and diverting, with pleasantly skewed sensibilities, but not developed enough to really tell if the author's got the ability to pull off a fully realized short story, as opposed to an amusing skit.
For example, the title story is basically a real estate agent's narration of a home tour in which the seller has installed a sex romper room in the basement. The humor is all in the premise, and the execution of it doesn't move beyond the obvious. Similarly, "Chicken Soup for the Kidnapper's Soul" is the title and all you really need to know about a parody of the saccharine bestselling "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series. "The Many Lives of James Brown's Capes" riffs on what happened to the dead soul singer's personal effects that were sold at auction. You get the idea.
Which is not to say that some of the pieces aren't a little more biting than others. For example, "Wash, Rinse, Repeat" is a decent little satire involving washing machines with a "Kill" setting, and "Donor 322" uses email exchanges to throw a dark light on sperm donation. My favorite of all is "My Son Thinks He's French," which takes the titular concept for a spin, only to execute a twisted and hilarious punchline in the last paragraph.
Ultimately, if you have a taste for the somewhat twisted, dark, or surreal, you might want to check this out. For me, it's the kind of writing that if a friend showed me, I'd be impressed and encouraging -- but it's not quite ready for prime-time. Some good stuff here, and hopefully it's just the first taste of bigger things to come from the author.
For example, the title story is basically a real estate agent's narration of a home tour in which the seller has installed a sex romper room in the basement. The humor is all in the premise, and the execution of it doesn't move beyond the obvious. Similarly, "Chicken Soup for the Kidnapper's Soul" is the title and all you really need to know about a parody of the saccharine bestselling "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series. "The Many Lives of James Brown's Capes" riffs on what happened to the dead soul singer's personal effects that were sold at auction. You get the idea.
Which is not to say that some of the pieces aren't a little more biting than others. For example, "Wash, Rinse, Repeat" is a decent little satire involving washing machines with a "Kill" setting, and "Donor 322" uses email exchanges to throw a dark light on sperm donation. My favorite of all is "My Son Thinks He's French," which takes the titular concept for a spin, only to execute a twisted and hilarious punchline in the last paragraph.
Ultimately, if you have a taste for the somewhat twisted, dark, or surreal, you might want to check this out. For me, it's the kind of writing that if a friend showed me, I'd be impressed and encouraging -- but it's not quite ready for prime-time. Some good stuff here, and hopefully it's just the first taste of bigger things to come from the author.