Customer Reviews

The Rooms

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

 

 

Okay, here's what happened: the first book I read by Hemmingson was his best, but I didn't know that at the time and after reading "My Dream Date (Rape) with Kathy Acker" I immediately went out and bought everything I could find by him. As it turned out, Hemmingson was not the Dennis Cooper-esque author I assumed he was, but was instead an erotica writer. Hemmingson did have a few other books I liked ("Nice Little Stories Jam-Packed With Depraved Sex & Violence," "Snuff Flique"), but for the most part he writes books like "The Rooms," which I have found deadly boring and monotonous.

In the case of "The Rooms" and his similarly themed books, "erotica" is a misnomer -- because the sex in these books is definitely, unequivocally not erotic. Maybe I don't get the definition, but the sex in his books is about degradation and self-loathing.

"The Rooms" is about two college professors who carry on a vile and disgusting slave/master relationship with a young student named Danni. Danni will do anything they want and enjoys being defiled. Both men get off on abusing her and "lending" her out to other people. Each man is a deviant without a soul -- the older professor carries on a sexual relationship with a child and the young professor indulges Danni's thirst for abuse for his own sexual gratification.

Like the other erotica books I've read from Hemmingson, this maps out as sex scene after sex scene, written with about as much effort as a grocery list -- there's nothing here even approaching the word prose. The language is incredibly flat and dull -- sub-"Penthouse Forum."

There's no real plot here, though the story takes a hilariously grade-Z turn into the sci-fi at one point. If I didn't have this obsessive-compulsive thing about finishing every book I start I probably would have stopped reading when they got to the "Re-Animator" part of the story.

I guess I just don't get the point of these books. The sex is written so mundanely. It doesn't even try to convey the tactile sensations of these acts. Everything is written as bluntly as a menu. The same acts are repeated over and over again in the same uninvolving, textbook style.

There's never even an attempt to show why these people do what they do. Exactly who is Danni? Why does she love to be defiled? What has happened to this woman that she hates herself so much that she gets off on being abused? This is a woman who literally takes on a house of men just to feel debased and filthy. But why? Hemmingson doesn't let us get to know any of these people. This is all show and no tell.

The debauchery in this book is so casual and flavorless that it can't even manage to be shocking. The whole thing feels utterly pointless.

I'm not a saint and never have been (I certainly would have considered myself a libertine back in the day), and I don't disapprove of anything that goes on here (save the child molestation, of course, which is presented as a last-gasp effort to outrage) and like to read my share of offbeat, odd and fairly extreme fiction, but "The Rooms" -- and the similar books by Hemmingson that I read -- reveal nothing but a frigid banality that's the complete opposite of the erotic.

This book was DISGUSTING! It was not at all as described. The woman in it wasn't submissive, she was a victim of sexual abuse since she was a young girl. The book included another scene of a man having sex with a young girl. YUCK! This isn't erotica, it's the lowest form of porn.

This short novel takes a lot of twists and turns, catches you off guard, and is a joy to read from page one to the end, especially the poetry selections that are revealing to the mind of the female lead, Danielle.

and before you jump to buy it be forewarned that I really really did not like this book at all. It get my five star rating only because it is very well written, has a great little story and even some semblance of a plot. What makes it hard core can not be really described in this forum ... but ... trust me ... in my opinion it's way way out there for a Blue Moon book ....

Since erotica is in the eye of the beholder I am sure that some readers may like this kind of work ....

Probably one of the strangest erotica novels (or novella) that I have
read. Not sure I get the poems at the end.