“37 Stories about 37 Women” Erotic Reading Book Review
“37 Stories about 37 Women: A Collection of Edgy Stories“, published by Fanny Press and edited by Brian Whitney is a collection of 37 stories about 37 different characters. As the book is only 103 pages long, as you can imagine, each one of the stories is very short. This is a book of fiction, and all of the short stories are written by Brian Whitney himself. The book’s front cover features sexually suggestive pictures, and partnered with the title, onlooker may think you’re reading erotica, so that’s something to keep in mind for public reading.
The first thing I HAVE to say is that this collection is NOT erotic. Not in the slightest. However, as it’s about sex, it’s being featured under this column. Do not expect anything to particularly turn you on or make you want to have sex, though.In fact, the book pretty much does the opposite despite the sexual-looking pictures on the front of the book.
So what is this? Basically, it’s a short book that’s a collection of 37 various stories about 37 various women. They read as true stories, but they are all made up by the author. Each one of the stories is about two or three pages long, and each one usually involves sex, bad mistakes, and drugs. The stories are not erotic – in fact, they’re more like confessions about the “bad” things these men/women have done in their lives for or because of erotic partners.
And to be honest, this book just rubbed me the wrong way. There’s nothing likeable about a single one of these characters.Not one. They rape, they lie, they steal, and they abuse. A lot of the men are stereotypical “I just want sex” mindset, and a lot of the women become the stereotypical “I fell in love after we had sex” mindset. But if these were real, true, confessions, I’d understand. People have dark parts of their souls, and all of us want to confess (and read others!) confessions. But they aren’t. These are short works of fiction. Too short to actually even sorta like the character. Too short to be happy in any way. So you end up finishing the book with a completely negative mindset and going “Why did I just read this?”
So, it basically just becomes an entire book of short stories about how depraved people get when they’re addicted to drugs and love having sex. And I know those are real people – there are real ones out there who have those exact same problems. But reading an entire book of short fiction about imaginary people with these problems just makes me hate humanity. It just makes me hate what people can become. And for a book that has sexually suggestive pictures right on the cover, that seems like the completely wrong road that they wanted to take.
Another issue is just the similarity of the stories. In none of the stories do you really feel attached or feel any positives about the character. It’s just “bad person” after “bad person” after “bad person”. I put that in quotes because I’m sure these people had positive sides, but the stories just didn’t seem to reflect that. They were focused on the depravity. There’s a steady flow of drugs, affairs, abuse, rape, stealing, lying, and drinking to the point of passing out. Almost all of the stories includes at least three of those things. Maybe as a shorter collection, this could have worked, but after 37 of these stories, it did tend to get tiresome. I remember liking the first 20 stories, but after that, it seemed like a lot of repetition.
I do have to give the book some recognition for managing to write about these awful experiences – yet the writing never seems to pass judgement. It never seems to condemn the guy for raping the woman or condemn the woman for obsessively staying with him despite his beatings. It just lays them out as the story – as the facts for this person’s life. For someone who’s been through some of these trying events, I could see this book as soothing, theraputic, or reassuring that what they didn’t wasn’t so bad.
So, will this one stick with me? It depends. Will I remember it as a completely depraved book that I never want to re-read? Yes. Will I take something “further” or “philosophical” out of it? No. Again, maybe if it was a collection of real stories, it’d hit me harder, but as fiction, it’s just depraved fiction to me. However, this may really appeal to some people, so if that sounds like you, “37 Stories about 37 Women” is available on both Kindle, Paperback, and Smashwords.
The Erotic Reading Review is a regular column written by Kayla. This column brings you reviews over erotica, instructional, and other types of sex-related books.
