Customer Reviews

Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract (v. 3)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book and the other 2 Brown Sugar installments. I plan on purchasing the 4th installment. If you like erotica, go for the Brown Sugar series. I enjoyed these more than anything Zane has written.

While I don't claim to be an erotica expert, I do own a few collections with various themes(fairy tales,water, and erotica for women). This was the first Brown Sugar collection I had read. I was happy to find first and foremost really sexy stories. Very little ick factor, some kink but not enough to alienate and fully realized characters. Maybe it is too vanilla for some, but I think too many erotic anthologies are weird for the sake of being weird. Unusual stories are great, but it is hard to relate to a jumble of esoteric and performance-artist queer erotica that is billed as a "Best of" collection.

"Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract" is a well-edited, richly drawn selection of stories. I say without irony that it is soulful, as in humanistic. While it is Black Erotica, I found it highly relatable for anyone. That which is good is fantastic. Even the okay stories are pretty good. Maybe two stories really suck. That is still a much better average than my previous purchases.

Sexy and insightful. Whether it's a story to make you think, like Wanda Coleman's Harold and Popcorn or a story to turn you on like Shariff Simmons' Love and the Game, Brown Sugar 3 has something for everyone. Keep up the good work.
I'm ready for Brown Sugar 4!

It is in short story collections such as these that we find the hint of A.A.'s greatest literary potential.

The shelves are glutted these days with black writers doing their very best Danielle Steele and John Grisham impersonations. More power to them. In the popular A.A. romance and mystery/thriller genres, black writers have found a niche that makes money, their writing is generally pretty decent mainstream scribbling, and their fans (the hundreds of thousands of college-educated, career-minded black women) seem happy enough with the product to make stars of the authors.

The problem is that these genres, though popular and therefore financially lucrative to black folk, are not examples of our "great" art. These Dickeys, McMillans, and Tyrees of today will not be passed down to our children as examples of great books; they will simply be replaced in the next decade by the new Dickeys, McMillans, and Tyrees writing about the "popular" A.A. romance culture of that new day. In fact, writers of the popular genres (in any American ethnic group) risk financial disenfranchisement if they dare to elevate their art to the level of literature, if they dare to take artistic risks in their work.

Not so with erotica. I have been following the Brown Sugar series from the beginning, and I must tell you that the editor has consistently chosen stories that are not just erotic, but "interesting." Brown Sugar 3 is no different. Yes, many of the stories do follow the predicatble patterns of today's urban romance scene, but the writing is a hundred times more polished, due I suppose to the editing skills of Carol Taylor. For example, I have long been a fan of Zane's, though critical of her somewhat pedestrian style. She sparkles in this book. To see Zane as good as Zane can be, alone is worth the price of the book.

Finally, there are many excellent scenes in the book that will arouse. After all, it is erotica and opposites do attract. The images that are most lasting in my mind are 1) the beautiful older librarian bouncing up and down on the lap of the freshman football playing hunky brother as her white husband suddenly shows up and 2)the church boy praying for forgiveness while losing his virginity to the hoochie. There are many such great scenes like that in this book.

Erot·ic - devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire. It was very difficult for me to read Brown Sugar 3 because the majority of the stories did not meet the dictionary definition of erotic. Although, I did enjoy the stories by Preston Allen, Denene Millner, Nick Chiles, and Lolita Files, there just were not enough bright spots for me to call this collection of so-called erotic stories good.

Based on my personal definition of erotic I would give this book one star. However, I realize that what I would find erotic others may view as pornographic. Hence, I must be fair and give this book three stars. People who have not graduated from the missionary position may find the stories exciting.

Euftis

What makes this collection great is that each writer understands where real heat comes from: seduction. There is enough development in each so that we care about these characters. I would love to see these writers writing novels. I think I saw in one of the other reviews that Zane was in this one. She must be talking about Brown Sugar 2. Zane is not in this one. Good book, though, if you like romance.

Nelly Fisher.

"I've been waiting for Brown Sugar 3 ever since I finished Brown Sugar 2 and
I wasn't disappointed. Love and the Game made me hot while Scenes from a
Marriage made me think. Brown Sugar 3 is an "erotic" anthology that manages to be
equal parts storytelling. I read the whole book in one
night."

I am disappointed that I bought this book, I wish that I could have borrowed it because it was a waste of money. It really dragged on & on and it was not erotic enough for me. I started to read a few of the stories but I couldn't continue because they were so boring. TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTING!

The mixing of different shades of brown is always exciting to view or imagine. Indeed, the combination of deep black, sepia, coffee, caramel, or raw sienna is always a distinctly pleasurable experience, whether this combination is done with two colors at a time or even more. And all variations in tone are uniquely qualified to grant this ecstasy of visualization and participation.

The intertwining of this part of the spectrum is expressed powerfully in this collection of short stories. It does not exhaust the imagination, as it should not, for readers must not let any book totally eliminate this part of the brain. There must always be a residual amount left after the story is told, for future reference that is, and for future fantasies. Good erotica is characterized by its ability to let readers both identify with the events in the story and to fill it in with private details as they see fit. It is therefore to be distinguished from pornography, which leaves nothing to the imagination, and which is typically a synonym for banality.

The story by Lori Bryant-Woolridge stands out in particular in its ability to swindle, delightfully, the reader's imagination. Called "Close Encounters," it deceives the reader into thinking that orgasm is near, that the characters identities are fixed, and that their desires are average. The story definitely takes the reader out of sexual equilibrium, and does not disappoint in its ability to deliver what it promises.

Reading the book is like building a tent. Each story is like a stake that must be hammered into the ground to make the tent more taut. As these stakes are pounded into the dirt the tent becomes tenser; its surface becomes drum tight. The deeper the stakes go the tighter it gets, finally ripping under the tension. The reader is then left naked with no protection from the elements, but most assuredly satisfied.