Frenzy. 60 Stories of Sudden Sex - erotic fiction by Cleis Press Inc. - review by Kayla

Frenzy, 60 Stories of Sudden Sex, is a book edited by Alison Tyler and published by Cleis Press. It's a soft cover book with 209 pages. It includes the same high-quality pages that I've come to know from Cleis Press. The front cover shows a girl, supposedly giving head, through an open door looking into the bathroom with the words "Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex." The back is a little more discreet than the front, and if you hid the cover, you could easily read this in a public place if you wanted to.

What's neat about Frenzy is that the stories range in length from 75 to 1500 words. This is roughly a paragraph to two and a half pages in length. If you look at the EF pictures that are available of the book, when you look at the preview of "Language", what you see on EF's picture is actually the entire story. That fifteen lines worth is an entire story. Because of this, Alison Tyler was able to fit sixteen different stories into these 209 pages with each story varying widely in length.

Now, overall, I was pleased with the book. However, some of the stories just weren't sexy at all. Most of the shorter 75-word-ish stories just weren't sexy to me in the slightest. Most of those just usually spoke about sex in "general" and "philosophical" terms that just didn't include the sexy "bluntness" that I've come to expect from my Cleis Press erotica. However, true to the title, most of the stories included in this collection of erotica have to do with some-what quick sex. I say “somewhat quick” because some of the scenarios don't include quickies but what makes it quick was the way it was written which is saddening. However, the small word count does help contribute to a feeling of "quick" sex.

Some of the erotica isn't quite as arousing, but at the same time, I started finding enough "Oh my god - Hot!" stories that I actually had to bring out post-it notes to mark them, so I could skim over them in this review. When I have to bring out post-it notes because these stories were hot enough to warrant them, you know the stories that are good are *damn* good. It's just the bad/slow erotic stories that really let the collection down. It wasn't anything horrid, and the good/bad ratio is like 90% good, 10% bad, so don't let that keep you from enjoying the book, but don't feel pressured to read the stories that just don't appeal to you - because there will be some.

However, the neat thing about having 60 different erotic stories is the fact that everyone can find something that meets their sexual needs in this erotic collection. For me, it was the stories that included some note of public sex - which I never knew was a major turn-on until reading this book.

For the most part, the stories in this book focused on male/female relationships. There were a couple homosexual couplings included in the book, but quite honestly, I don't remember the stories behind them at all leading me to believe that the heterosexual couplings held the majority of the hot stories.

The stories in the book varied widely in what exactly the plot was. I was always surprised by each new story because each new one included a new plot - it wasn't the same thing over and over. For example, for one, we were in the POV of the nosy hotel-mate who was watching his business associate have sex with coworker he had a crush on. In another, a girl keeps attending a swinger's party but only watches every time instead of participating then goes off to the bathroom to masturbate. To include her in the action, the host installs a camera in his bathroom and shows the girl on the TV screen in his living room.

So was I pleased? Yes. The book did exactly what it promised - which was to turn me on. Some of the stories were below-par in my opinion, but for those that don't have to read them for review purposes, you can easily skip over the bad ones and read only the good ones. And believe me - the good ones included in this are totally worthy of the price.

Since I don't want to list the plot of all sixty stories, I'll give you some of my favorites so you can get a taste of what to expect.

By far, my favorite was "Pirate Treasure" by Janine Ashbless. A girl works as an extra on a Pirate TV show and is forced to sit on the lap of a male pirate for a bar scene. It turns out her corset top is too small, and her Pirate mate can see her nipples during the scene. It leads to lots of foreplay during the filming and more. Just downright hot.

In "Hands On" by Ariel Graham, a principal of a local school continues to chastise a girl who keeps running and skating down the high school hallways. He finds himself very attracted to her but banishes the thought - thinking she's a student. When his next teacher's meeting comes up, there she is - sitting in the front row - the new teacher of his English class. With her smart quips, he meets her after the meeting for a spanking and lots of other fun things.

In "Take Note, Please" by Linda K. Sienkiewicz, a girl wakes up blindfolded and strapped to a table. When the blindfold shakes free, she finds herself in front of an entire room of college kids learning the art of how to pleasure a woman. She thinks back on all of the times she's denied her husband the ability to touch her in any sexual way while all of the students take turns learning how to pleasure her and touch her breasts. She finds herself driven wild and the climax of the story is when one of the men wants to teach her what pleasure *really* feels like, so he starts having sex with her in front of the class while the professor runs to fetch security.

On a side note, another reviewer mentioned a part about a dog and peanut butter. While something like this was included in the book, it wasn't a focus by far. It included a girl thinking about why she let her past boyfriend and one line stated "I came home and he and the dog were covered in peanut butter. So I left him. Now that I'm single...." So it was more humorous than gross really.

I haven't really read Frenzy since when I first picked it up. It wasn't really a bad book, but it also didn't leave anything memorable in my mind aside from the fact that I really dislike short stories. However, it definitely made me realize that I do like the idea of public sex/being caught, so I've been pursuing that in my future erotica endeavors. The book still looks great with no yellowing pages or problems with the pages.