Girl crush - book discontinued by Cleis Press Inc. - review by Timaree

There's a perception that men are drawn to simple graphic, visual sexual images and women are drawn to stories with elaborate settings and complex dynamics between the characters. Whoever put this collection of short erotic stories together totally agrees with that... but they also like a good finger fuck.

Many of the fantasies spend several pages building up a back story that frames the relationship between the characters who will eventually end up banging. A couple of them are only cursory set ups, thin premises that launch immediately into hot action. My favorite of those would be "Good Neighbors," a short story of exhibitionism, voyeurism, and three-way sex between near strangers. And unlike most of the tales in the book, it features some hetero banging. It sticks out in the book as being the most conventional porno flick storyline. You could actually jerk off while reading it.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's "Call Me Cleopatra," a lethargic 13 page tale of overly emo sentiment and no actual sex. It felt like I was a college professor, forced to wade through Intro to Fiction homework by a budding closeted lesbian. "I Told A Stranger About You Yesterday" also lacks any actual sex, which is surprising for a story centered around a visit to a prostitute.

The gist of this collection of "women's erotic fantasies" is a literary tease: it provides fodder for your imagination to fill in details later. You read a story while waiting for the train, get a little turned on, and let it ruminate in your head for the duration of your trip home. By the time you've tossed your keys and purse to the floor, you'll have developed a fully formed fantasy of your own that you can call back to when you're having some "me time."

The prevailing theme is girl-on-girl; but with few exceptions, it's Lesbian Lite. Many (if not most) of the protagonists are self-identified straight girls - or at least first timers with Sapphic interactions. The novelty and first-time-ness of the stories could make a bicurious reader squeamish with delight but leave an out-and-proud dyke cold with the awkwardness. Maybe you'll be pulled back fondly to the first time you had a girl-on-girl make out session and revisit that nervous dizziness of not knowing what to do.

Some of the highlights and lowlights:

-"Great Lengths" is the first story in the book and it sets the tone for the collection with a friends-turned hookup story that is neither romantic nor terribly erotic. Despite it's porno-cliche domme, it's fairly realistic, especially the resolution.

-"Skinny-Dipping," a cute story with lots of slow, luxuriously descriptive story before the action. The sensory tension is built up with phrases like, "she flashed a smile- a shy curve of painted bronze that held a shimmer of mischief."

-"Cut and Dry," is another cute tease. It plays on our day-to-day fantasies where we see someone who drives us wild whom we can't have. The women get to have a sensational hook up before quickly returning to normal so no one knows the wiser.

-"The Bachelorette" features great characters but entirely too much back story to be read as masturbatory fodder. One of many tales that features finger fucking as the ultimate act depicted but with allusions to the fun just starting as the story ends.

-"The Best Kind of Revenge" features a weird, unrelatable main character, BDSM as foreplay and a wild all-girl group "rape" scenario. It's neither intimate nor particularly satisfying in the way that most power play fetish stories are.

-"Discovering Donnie" is a super long story of courtship that leads into a steamy hookup. From the outset it looks like a classic heterosexual set-up but includes a delightful and romantic twist.

Ultimately, the collection can be summed up by the editor of the book who comments in the intro that "Girl crushes are all the rage these days" and "There is something very satisfying about a crush, about possibility." This will tickle your bicurious fancy or add to your collection of lesbian erotica, but is not to be considered alongside meat-and-potatoes porn stories.