What happens when you gather a group of award-winning literary authors to pen anonymous erotica? It's a tantalizing question, but one that's far richer when left to the imagination. It's a shame that Literary Review canceled their Bad Sex in Fiction awards, because they would have quite the buffet with Hillary Jordan and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan Anonymous Sex. Or, at least, I'm presuming they would have...I could only make it through a handful of these stories before throwing my hands up and calling it quits with this anthology.

Things started off decently enough in "History Lesson," which finds historians Denise and Michael meeting for sex every year at an annual convention. It's a game they play, but this year Michael starts things early, sending Denise text messages threatening to release the video they made during their last tryst. The threat was all Denise's idea, part of their games of dominance and submission, of punishment and humiliation. After she begins breaking the rules and pieces of her make it onto the internet, she begins to appreciate how it feels to be objectified and the power her anonymity gives her.

Of the few stories I tackled, "History Lesson" is the closest Anonymous Sex gets to presenting anything enticingly erotic, with each successive story rapidly detouring this into a collection of diminishing rewards. By the time I got to the end of the second story, "Asphodel," which not only lacks eroticism but anything of interest at all, I was struggling to understand why it had even been published in the first place, let alone in a purportedly erotic anthology.

I had hoped for a quick recovery in "En Suite," which follows two women listening to a rowdy couple's shenanigans through their thin, adjoining hotel room walls. Would the sexy happenings next door being enough to push Anne and Linney's growing desires beyond mere friendship? Well, spoiler alert, but we'll never know. All the steamy action takes place off-page, in a different room altogether, away from our two central characters, and where they go, and what they may or may not do, is left entirely open-ended, making this story disappointing on multiple levels.

"Altitude Sickness" is told through the shifting perspectives of various flyers, but none of these vignettes contain even the slightest trace of eroticism. Sure, there's mention of a guy going into the bathroom to ejaculate into the toilet - it's literally one line and doesn't provide much more detail than I've written here - and a dancer who engages in some rope play, also equally nondescript, but that's about it. Equally absent are paragraph breaks and dialogue tags, presenting readers with page after page after page after page of wall-to-wall blocks of text.

"Woman Eaten By Shark Drawn To Her Gold Byzantine Ring" is just as described. It's approximately one and three-quarters Kindle Fire HD screen's and a handful of sentences long. A swimmer gets eaten by a shark, and is reminded of the pounding her husband gave her earlier that morning with a dirty sock stuffed into her mouth. That's it. That's the whole story. It's only slightly longer than the space I've given it here. By the time I reached the end, I was left with mouth agape and laughing out loud, wondering what the fuck this piece was even supposed to be. On the bright side, at least it was blessedly short.

And yet, the worst was still to come...

"LVIII Times A Year" was the coup de grâce for me and officially, finally, irrevocably killed any interest I had in continuing on with this burgeoning house of horrors. If this piece wasn't written by an award-winning, literary male author, I'll eat my hat. And if indeed it was not, then whoever wrote this did a damn good impression of a literary man badly writing about sex. Sadly, it's utterly impossible to tell if this story was written in earnest or as satire. The entire story - literally the whole damn thing, from beginning to end, reads like one long example of men writing about women badly, with its musings on how much the male lead's wife's slopping pussy resembles mussels, their sex drawing comparisons to mating with a mare in heat, pretentious segues into Latin pre-, post-, and mid-coitus, and the anatomical impossibility of, once buried inside her, being kissed by the eager, pouting, sucking mouth of her womb. E-fucking-gads, y'all! But, kudos where it's due, I suppose?, for Anonymous actually incorporating sex scenes into their story, an element that has been particularly lacking in the preceding stories about... you know...sex. Sadly, this is some of the most poorly written sex I've read in quite a while, on top of being utterly joyless and inhibited. So, yeah, kudos... way to go, dude.

There were 21 more stories after this, but I'll be damned if I could muster up any enthusiasm or enough liquid courage to even try and hate read the rest of this fucking thing.

What little of Anonymous Sex I did manage to muster through ultimately, and totally, missed the mark of what I expect out of an erotica anthology. To answer the question posed above, it turns out that when you gather a group of award-winning literary authors to write erotica, what you end up with is a collection of unengaged and sexless stories by authors who clearly believe the erotica genre is beneath them, and its readers are to be held, if not in outright contempt then, in open hostility.

I was very hopeful going into Anonymous Sex that the stories would draw me in. The first one had me wishing it was over by the time I finished it. I tried the second story and still had no interest in it. The subject matter of cheating is not one that will turn me away from a book. The writing and stories will. I tried this book on several different dates hoping that it would pull me in. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me.

This was everything it was promised - titillating and left me very curious! Some stories I liked more than others, but that's just how it works with story collections.

27 anonymous stories about sex by well known writers. I loved the concept of this book. There’s a good variety of different stories included and of varying lengths. I really enjoyed some of them, and others I ended up skipping through.

I liked the initial concept of best selling authors writing erotic stories anonymously. I think I enjoyed some more than others, and there were quite a few in here that were heavily steeped in metaphors and imagery. Which, if you are looking for a more poetic and literary take on erotica/romance, this is for you. There are also some genuinely moving stories about romance and loss and tenderness that almost belong in a poetry collection. I think the title might be slightly misleading because this is more that simply sexual encounters (and some of them don't even detail those), and some stories are more forgettable, but a solid anthology all around.

Since this is essentially a short story collection, I didn’t read it straight through, but rather dipped into it to read one or two stories at a time, over the course of about a week. And as with any short story collection, the quality of the stories, and my enjoyment of them, varied a lot. The premise of this collection of erotic stories is very clever: 27 stories written by 27 writers, but you don’t know who wrote which story. My favorites were probably the adult retelling of the Rapunzel story and Find Me, a tale of an encounter on a long-distance train.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Interesting compilation of short stories, about sex written anonymously by various Authors.
Some tame others not so tame some good others not so much.
I'm sure there is something for everyone contained within.
Thank you to Netgalley, Scribner books and Author, Hillary Jordan for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Anthology books with a variety of authors can be tricky. There is going to be stories/authors you enjoy and those you don't. You have to go in with an open mind in order to enjoy it overall. And that's what I did. I kept my mind open to as many different points of view that I could.

And while overall I didn't think it was a bad collection of short stories, I found myself on the side of enjoying less of them than more of them. I think there were some definite hits in this book but more times than not, I wasn't getting pulled in by any of the stories. The other issue of short stories is that not all authors can draw you in in a short amount of time/space. So kudos for all of them for attempting to do that but this was more disappointing than not.

This was not a sexy or hot book. It was a little sad and depressing; not at all what I expected. I think the word "anonymous" in the title made me think that this book was something that it was not.

Oof. This book was...cringey. It's like the authors tried too hard to write steamy stories about people and encounters they have no experience with.

I was provided this advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Anonymous Sex has an intriguing hook: This collection of 27 erotic stories was written anonymously by highly-regarded and much-awarded literary authors. I'd actually only previously read a few of these authors (who are attributed alphabetically at the beginning of the book), but I love a good sexy story and was eager to see what all of these writers would come up with -- especially writing under the no-holds-barred condition of anonymity.

I read the first story, "History Lesson," about a yearly (filmed) tryst between two historians at an annual conference, and I was like, okay, wow, this is going to be quite a ride. But unfortunately, the more stories I read, the more I felt as though these writers misunderstood the assignment.

Many of the stories came across as trying too hard, while also not trying hard enough, if that makes sense. The stories are very literary, but a lot of them are not really very sexy. And although the blurb claims these stories explore the "diverse spectrum of desire," almost all of the stories feature heterosexual characters and there isn't much here that really pushes the envelope.

That said, I still appreciated and enjoyed several of these stories. Some of my favorites were "Odi Et Amo," a nostalgic story set in pre-WWII California; "Posseeblay," which explores married sex in all its moments of magic and mundanity; "Partita," which narrates a woman's sexuality in reverse, from old age to girlhood; and "Vis a Vis 1953," about a steamy chance encounter on a train. "I Don't Miss You" is written as though one contributor is speaking directly to another contributor, and I was so intrigued and would love to know if it was fact or fiction.

But my favorite story was "Love Doll," a story that is not at all erotic but explores themes of fetishism, obsession, and toxic masculinity. I have an idea who wrote this one just based on its setting, and I was fascinated and repulsed by this story. I'm just not sure it belonged in this collection.

I think if you're into this type of story, there will be something in this collection that will work for you. But if you're looking for full-on sexy times without the literary pretensions, I'd say read a straight-up collection of erotica instead.

I love the idea behind this book but the execution left me wanting, not exactly the feeling you expect when reading erotica. I thought the authors would really let loose, knowing their pieces would be anonymous but some are barely sexy let alone close to erotica. It's like they didn't understand the assignment.

Such a fun read! You want to guess who wrote each juicy piece, yet at the same time it’s so fun not knowing. It’s pretty straightforward, and I won’t add more to give anything away, but if you’re looking for juicy tales of sex and lust, this is the one for you!

I received an advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

WOW! The premise of this erotica collection is that a group of well-known authors was asked to each write one erotic story that would be published in this collection with a list of authors credited, but no one will know which author penned which story. They are free to write some truly lovely and dirty tales in reasonable anonymity. Each tale was more enjoyable than the next. LOVED this book!

This was such an interesting concept! Some of the pieces in this collection were automatic 5-stars for their daringness and exploration of sex of all kinds, while some were a bit lackluster in execution. Bravo for these ladies for pulling this together!

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy.

Ok, just to be clear. It has been a hot minute since I have read straight up erotica. This one had such a great premise. Get a bunch of authors, publish a book of short stories and try to figure out who wrote what.

I really liked the idea. The execution....not so much.

I'm gonna say that is a no for me dawg.

Real Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded down for the unbearable straightness of it all

Point one: I'm queer as the proverbial three-dollar bill. Point two: I'm old. Sex, while it still entertains and even once in a while delights me (given that the party of the second part is far away ATM that's not the most common occurrence), I'm not as, um, <I>invested</i> in the subject as I once was. Point three: I've internalized a lot more of the 21st century's norms and mores than I thought I had, as I discovered reading this.

A woman whose fantasy life is spent imagining her "ethnic" next-door neighbor, for example, made me a little...uneasy...because that just feels weird these #MeToo days. However, that self-same story contains some lines that made me snort my ramen:
<blockquote>...maybe I won't even ask them to talk about <I>Things Fall Apart</i>, which tends to startle and tongue-tie my almost-entirely-white-and-well-off wards. Not that I don't share their good fortune, though I, bookish girl from a big Irish Italian Catholic family, married into this seaside haven of college professors & financiers, skim-milk Unitarians who wouldn't know original sin from artisanal gin.</blockquote>
There is a startling absence of men as actors. Not just gay ones, men as the point of the story. That got it a half-point, though we can't remotely consider this a Bechdel-test win! Heterosexuality is common, goodness knows, but it's common as pig tracks here in this collection. No, not every encounter was heterosexual; just almost all.

There are twenty-seven stories in this collection. I can actually remember reading three of them:

<U>One Day in the Life of Josephine Bellanotte Munro</u> does what I hope all women do: tosses itself off in any handy corner while seriously violating her Proper Matron Status by fetishizing the "ethnic" neighbor, wondering how the hell to convince her still-eager husband to go the fuck away with that thing, and scare her teenage daughter into a week's celibacy by threatening to expose her sex life to her dad.

Ick. Just...ick.

<U>What the Hands Remember</u> poignantly meditates on that one paralyzingly terrifying, utterly ensorcelling, always humiliating First: a boy's first sex with a living, breathing partner. In this case, as the man remembering it has lost all other memories, all other connections to life. <B>This</b> is the moment he relives.

Josephine will, somehow, somewhere, still feel you, will be back there with you...and that is the real Kiss of Death. A horndog you surely were, but in the end we are our final and authentic selves. SO: Vale, sir.

<U>Vis-à-Vis 1953</u> suspends two bored, unhappy people in the gladsome cage of shared need and always sought, never satiated desire.

On a train from L. A. to Wichita, Kansas.

Ends, beginnings, they're the exciting bit. Middles can wear on you; there's no middle here.

An enjoyable read with lots of steamy stories that capture the imagination. I am giving my honest opinion via NetGalley in exchange for reading this book.

An enjoyable collection of erotic short stories by a myriad of talented authors. I really liked the originality and content of some, but found other stories a little lacking. This collection likely has something for everyone. Overall, an intriguing collection!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a collection of stories about erotic situations or feelings that are all by famous authors who wrote on the condition of anonymity. The stories vary based on what each author wanted to write about. Some are truly erotica, others are very odd-it really runs the gamut of desires, feelings and situations.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for my honest review.