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A review by lovelyandmorbid
Kink: Stories by R.O. Kwon, Garth Greenwell
dark
slow-paced
3.0
All of these stories are very well written but they didn't really fit the theme. Most of the stories were only tangentially kinky and basically all of them were sad or melancholic? Pretty much every story had characters that were unsatisfied either emotionally or sexually and because they were short stories, that feeling never really resolves. Or worse, they center violence. One had a rape scene, several others had gore and death.
I rolled my eyes at the idea of "literary fiction writers writing about kink" because erotica and romance very lively genres that do kink perfectly well but the one rule in romance is happy endings and I don't think any of these stories were happy. Overall, it felt more like a sexual horror collection. The writing had this book comfortably at a 4 stars for most of the reading experience but by the end, I kind of felt, like, what is the point? Kink wasn't even centered in lots of the stories, and when it was, it wasn't really in a positive light. While I liked many of the stories, this collection felt unnecessary by the end.
I rolled my eyes at the idea of "literary fiction writers writing about kink" because erotica and romance very lively genres that do kink perfectly well but the one rule in romance is happy endings and I don't think any of these stories were happy. Overall, it felt more like a sexual horror collection. The writing had this book comfortably at a 4 stars for most of the reading experience but by the end, I kind of felt, like, what is the point? Kink wasn't even centered in lots of the stories, and when it was, it wasn't really in a positive light. While I liked many of the stories, this collection felt unnecessary by the end.
Graphic: Gore, Hate crime, Rape, and Transphobia