Bottoms Up - erotic fiction by Cleis Press Inc. - review by TacoODoom

Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Bottoms Up is a nice anthology of twenty spanking themed erotic short stories. They vary in writing style and don't seem to be arranged in any sort of pattern or order; this is both good and bad in my opinion. It's good because it offers a lot of variety so everyone will be sure to find at least one story they enjoy, if not more. Unfortunately I found the lack of pattern of progression in the stories to be distracting, I can't really think of a good way to explain it, it may just be the way my brain works, but when going from one story to the next where the writing style is dramatically different, as in from Sorority Sister to Days, both were first person narratives, but the style of narration was different, Sorority Sister was detailed and built a sense of tension as the story progressed, Days was repetitive and almost whiny.

The stories are all well written and free of typos, which is obviously important. In my opinion the stand out stories were the opener A Thousand Words which was scorchingly hot and had some delicious imagery and Ass Worship which appealed to the art lover in me. If you're into spanking, and you obviously are if you bought the book, than most of the stories will appeal to you on some level. The only stories I didn't jive on were the ones that weren't written in a style I found appealing, not because of their subject matter.

All in all, a good, well-written and compiled anthology. The stories' scenarios and pairings (i.e. m/m, f/m, solo) differ through out the book, as do the dominant roles; it truly does have something for everyone. I felt the need to read all the stories for the sake of the review, but naturally you can skip the ones you don't jive with. Happy Reading!

The stories in this anthology are good, but only a handful are worth a re-read. I understand opinions on writing are highly subjective, especially compounded with the fact the subject matter is intended to titillate. I'd still recommend it, but you may want to pass it on to someone else when you're done.