Sixty-nine writers, one reader, and eight and a half hours' worth of short fiction circling a single subject: that is the shape of this audiobook, and the shape is most of the review. Rachel Kramer Bussel edits, Rose Caraway reads, Cleis Press published the recording in 2014. What the listing does not mention is that the title field has dropped the book's subtitle, and that the genre field has filed a sixty-nine-story erotica anthology under romance. Neither error is fatal. Both change who ought to be buying it, because a collection of standalone climaxes and a romance novel ask entirely different things of a listener's attention.
Where This One Lands
Rachel Kramer Bussel's editing is the reason the collection works at all, and occasionally the reason it does not. One five-star verdict, dated October 2013 and therefore five months older than this recording, calls the anthology huge and varied and names contributors by hand: Tenille Brown, Emerald, Donna George Storey, Kay Jaybee. That verdict also lands the central promise, that with sixty-nine stories in all "there really is something for everyone here." I would put it a shade differently. Sixty-nine stories guarantee something for everyone and a fair amount for nobody in particular, and which is which depends completely on the listener rather than on any failure of editorial judgment.
Across eight and a half hours the anthology never builds, and it never intends to. Each story runs a few minutes, arrives at its titled event, and stops. The listing's own copy flags two by name, "Under the Table" by Elizabeth Coldwell and "The Pink Team" by Kelly Rand, and describes a range running from exhibitionism and voyeurism to a very special pair of blue jeans. Barbara Carrellas supplies a foreword. What the format means in practice is that this functions as a book you dip into rather than one you finish, which sits awkwardly against a single continuous recording with no obvious markers for re-entry once you have wandered off.
What Makes The Big Book of Orgasms Worth Hearing
Variety is the entire product, and a November 2020 verdict, also at five stars, describes it better than the marketing copy does, comparing the collection to a box of chocolates and listing what turned up inside: heterosexual, homosexual, group, fetish, voyeurism, self-love. Unpredictability is the pleasure being sold. Not knowing what the next eight minutes will contain does more work here than any individual story manages, and the effect differs genuinely from a single-author collection, where the fantasies eventually begin to rhyme with one another. Sixty-nine authors will not rhyme. They will contradict each other about what sex is even for, which turns out to be more interesting than a consistent house style.
That range carries a predictable cost, and a four-star verdict logged in September 2014 names it in one sentence: some contributors were obviously rookies, others were well thought out and excellent. Such is the anthology bargain. You pay for the ceiling and accept the floor. In a printed collection the floor is survivable because skipping is free. In audio the skip costs something, since finding the start of the next story means scrubbing a timeline rather than turning a page. Anyone who has tried to navigate a sixty-nine-piece collection by touch on a phone already knows how that particular exercise tends to go.
What Gives Us Pause
Not every story will work for you, and the pool demonstrates that more usefully than the badge does. The visible five span the whole scale: two fives, a four, a three, and a one. The three-star verdict of September 2016 offers the most practical advice on this listing, recommending you graze rather than sit down with it, and admitting to not having finished. A one-star verdict from February 2015 is blunter still, calling the stories lame and refusing to continue past the first few. Both are describing the same book accurately. An average of 3.8 across 476 ratings is not a consensus; it is arithmetic performed on people who found very different things.
Resetting register every seven or eight minutes is the real assignment Rose Caraway is handed, and it is harder than reading a novel. Sixty-nine authors means sixty-nine authorial voices, sixty-nine vocabularies for the same handful of acts, sixty-nine positions on how explicit is explicit enough. A reader who plays them identically flattens the anthology into one long story; a reader who differentiates too hard turns it into a sketch revue. I would happily tell you where this recording lands, except that across 476 ratings and five displayed responses, not one comments on the reading. That is an enormous quantity of feedback about a book and none whatsoever about the listening.
Should You Listen to The Big Book of Orgasms?
Erotica readers who already know they enjoy anthologies should treat this as a strong default. The editor has a reputation built on exactly this format, the contributor list runs deep, and the cost of a weak story is eight minutes rather than a wasted evening. It suits background listening better than most fiction does, since drifting through a paragraph loses you nothing structural. It also serves couples looking for something to share, provided both parties accept in advance that a good share of the collection will be aimed squarely at somebody else's preferences and can be waited out cheerfully.
Steer clear if what you need is narrative. No characters recur, no arc develops, and the final story is not a conclusion in any sense. It is equally the wrong choice if you would rather explicit content stayed implied, because the organizing principle is arriving at the same moment sixty-nine consecutive times. Judged as the thing it actually is, a sampler with a very wide aperture assembled by an editor who knows the field, it earns its place. Approach it as a playlist rather than an album and the unevenness stops registering as a complaint at all.
