Mary Anne Mohanraj

Much to my surprise I really enjoyed this book. I knew little about it before I started reading and I was expecting an experience more like that provided by the initially titillating, but subsequently tedious, Fifty Shades.

Torn Shapes of Desire is in a different style and dare I say, a different class, altogether. It is a collection of short stories and even shorter poems. This mixture of prose and poetry works very well in maintaining an interesting variety of styles. This, combined with show more the variety of the content, and the variations in sexual orientation of the characters, makes for an entertaining, often surprising, and certainly never boring read.

Without doubt Torn Shapes meets its self-description as erotica. It combines this often with a sense of joy, sometimes sadness, and always a sense of humour. Mary Anne Mohanraj usually tries to catch the reader out with a twist at the end of a story, challenging our assumptions or just simply providing a light-hearted moment.

Those interested in the history of the genre, and of this work in particular, will be pleased to find an appendix containing content from the original publication in 1997. This includes the publisher's foreword and the author's introduction. Although I doubt that many will consider the work to be controversial by current standards it is interesting to learn how it challenged the boundaries of acceptability of internet-based literature a mere 17 years ago.

Overall I highly recommend this book. Now please forgive me if I end this review here - there are a few of those stories I really need to read again. show less

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

This is one of the most user-friendly cookbooks I've ever had the pleasure of owning. Mohanraj provides just enough context and tells just the right stories to situate the recipe within the cultures this book represents, and then moves right along to the nitty gritty of the recipe itself. When we encounter uncommon ingredients, equipment, or techniques, there are plentiful tips on what can be fiddled with or worked around, and we're given a heads up when show more something is indispensable to the integrity of the recipe. There are helpful notes throughout about consistensies to aim for, or the stages of browning to watch for, or how to make sure your patties hold together. This is not a cookbook that will leave you feeling like you're being tested by Mary Berry in the GBBO tent! No, this book holds your hand and assures you that things will turn out fine.

And they do! Truly! Because the claim that Mohanraj makes which she delivers most thoroughly on is one that appears quite early in the book, in the introduction IIRC: that cooking these things isn't *difficult*. With the right guide - and she is it! - even neophytes will find some level of success.

I am a south Indian myself, so I was very familiar with the idli-dosa-poriyal section of this cookbook. But I'm still a noob at the other two thirds of the book. So far I've tried my hand at the curry buns and the milk toffee, and the results were surprisingly good for a first attempt. My kids made "yellow" ginger-garlic chicken (after I had helped with the chopping up of ingredients) - and they loved the results. I'm going to try the chinese rolls next. Wish me luck! show less

OK, so I'm a bit biased. I follow the author on social media & am a fan of pretty much everything of hers that I've read (not yet read everything she's written, but I'm working on it). On the other hand, I'm not really much of a reader of erotic fiction, finding most of it generally unsexy and eye-rollingly bad. This? Is not most erotic fiction. There's enough variety that just about anybody should find something appealing. And the characters are all warmly and realistically drawn.

Granted, show more all of the stories didn't work for me, but that's to be expected. We don't all find the same things intriguing or sexy in real life, either (thank ye gods and leettle feeshes, because otherwise this would be a rather boring world!) Those bits that did work for me? Wowza. /ahem/ Did it suddenly get warm in here?

One of my favorite things about the book, though, is the care that went into it. I've gotten so used to awful ebook editing, that it is a genuine pleasure to read one that doesn't have a million tiny errors of spelling, punctuation, spacing, grammar, etc. show less

This was an interesting collection; not quite what I expected from the title and byline. Rather than a series of erotic montages, this is a collection of short stories (and some poetry) that have sexual content, with the focus mostly on the participants' thoughts and reactions to it. Sex in context, if you will. There are some pretty creative narrative devices in here, including a story told in a series of email exchanges and plenty of endings-with-a-twist. It's very good creative writing show more and the collection does what it sets out to do (question the value of internet censorship) while still being an enjoyable read and not too preachy about the evils of censorship. show less