“Best Lesbian Erotica 2011” Erotic Reading Review
“Best Lesbian Erotica 2011“, a book published by Cleis Press and edited by Kathleen Warnock, is an entire book of erotica featuring one or more women in sexual situations. With a not-so-discreet cover, it’s probably best not to read this in public unless you can hide the cover. The book includes 199 pages and has 20 different stories in it. That’s about 10 pages per story, so the stories are short, but they do include a small plot to them. The format and editing is similar to typical Cleis Press books.
The theme to this book is including the best lesbian erotica published in 2011. This means that some of these stories (though most aren’t, I don’t think!) may be republished from other Cleis Press erotica books you’ve read. All of the stories include involvement between two females – in some of the stories, there is a definite “top” and definite “bottom” while in other types, you’ve got the obvious butch and femme while yet, in others, there doesn’t seem to be any “stereotypical” type of person involved.
I did like the fact that most of the stories included some sort of plot. The plot portion may not have been long or drawn out, but there was almost always a plot. It usually talked about how the two characters met or how circumstances led them to having sex. As I like knowing the “plot” behind the action, it was definitely a welcome addition. I wish some of the before-hand plots would have included more sexual tension though; the sexual tension wasn’t always part of the plot.
I liked this book; it isn’t at the top of my “love” list, but I definitely like it. At some points, I almost felt like the sex scenes weren’t quite descriptive enough. They weren’t as undescriptive as I’ve read in the past, but I felt almost like they just didn’t include enough passion for all of the scenes to really be the best for me. However, a couple of the stories definitely stuck out, and they were something I’d re-read again:
“Most Valuable Player” by Nairne Holtz: Deciding to take up a new exercise, the main character joins a full-lesbian basketball team. With a huge crush on her team captain, she’s surprised to sneek into the locker room to find her team captain with the opposing’s team captain doing some… “extra” … strategizing.
“Carried Away in Santa Fe” by Charlotte Dare: The main character finally decides to make the trek up to see her straight, recently-divorced best friend. That best friend that she has a crush on. What she doesn’t know is that her friend’s sexuality may have changed while the two were apart…
“Painted Nails and Puppy Dog Tails” by Giselle Renarde: When she moves, the main character notices that the cute salon worker near her is hot – and she just “happens” to keep an eye on what the girl is doing on most days. Devising a plan, the main character chooses to dress up and ask, at closing time, for a “haircut” from the girl to see if things could go farther.
This lesbian erotica book is okay. I don’t know if I’d consider it some of the best erotica from 2011, but it is a pretty solid collection of stories that may spark an interest in lesbian-erotica-reading-lovers. Some of the stories were amazing, but all of them were solid, and as long as you like a little plot with your story, this could be a great collection for you. Thanks to Cleis Press for providing “Best Lesbian Erotica 2011” for review.
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.
