A fun short story, quite liked it. It prompted me to order Libertie and We love you Charlie Freeman.

This wasn't for me - I wish it had been longer and we could've properly explored elements. It felt a bit rushed and the pacing felt off. A shame as there's great potential here.

This was an unusual short story exploring sexual desire during the pandemic. There were some humourous parts that I think had the story been longer would have elevated it above the mediocre tale it became. It was OK, I didn't take to the main character much, but again I think if it had been longer there may have been some reddening features.

Set amongst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, this short story follows a woman living in New York City. The description of this novel was a bit deceptive, given that I thought that this was going to be a funny short story centered around an orgy; however, upon reading it I didn’t really see what the point of the whole story was. I could see some underlying themes of connection, aging, and loneliness that individuals have felt throughout the pandemic, but these were merely mentioned and not further explored. Overall, this was a quick read but I wouldn’t recommend it to others.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Scribd for the gifted ebook!

Thank you NetGalley and Scribd for an early copy!
I couldn’t get into the groove of this story. Nessa is a young professional that wants to go to a orgy after COVID. The character is not likeable, None of them are. The story is a bored venture. It seems as if the author took a chapter from a novel and slapped a binded cover on top. Girls partying irresponsibly and catching the virus. Rude roommates. This (vulgar) story doesn’t offer much more than a newly cemented trope of living in the age of a pandemic with a quickly worn out plot.

Published digitally on Scribd on July 23, 2021

“Orgy” is the first true “pandemic story” I’ve encountered. I’m sure many more are on the way, but “Orgy” is a short story and presumably made it to market more quickly than the pandemic novels we’ll soon see.

Nessa is “closer to forty than girlhood.” She lives in Brooklyn with her roommate Laurie, a writer who specializes in essays about the microaggressions displayed by white women who wear yoga pants. Nessa is fed up with social distancing, although she understands its necessity. It is nevertheless interfering with a sex life that was once active and varied.

Nessa is bisexual and, when she plays the game of looking at subway passengers and asking herself whether she would sleep with them, searches for ways to say yes. Yet Nessa’s regular booty-call partners aren’t risking contact with her during the pandemic, presumably because they regard her as a “third-tier friend — not worth the risk of sharing a restaurant meal with. It is a cold reckoning at the end of the world.”

Nessa receives an email inviting her to an orgy. She believes the email is from members of the furry community and that the orgy will be a costume party, so she dons her pig nose and tail, rips some holes in her leotards, and sets out into the night over her roommate’s objection that she’s breaching the lockdown. The orgy isn’t quite what she expects, in part because she receives an unexpected reaction to a story she likes to tell, a story that is “one of the foundational myths of herself.”

The desire to scratch an itch after a pandemic-induced dry spell is an interesting concept for a story, but the story’s greater interest lies in the impact of the pandemic on New Yorkers. Nessa has recently delivered groceries to a 15-year-old girl who refused to wear a mask and became ill with COVID. As she ponders the girl’s decision to make “a potentially dumb choice just to feel something like free,” she wonders if that is exactly what she is doing by attending an orgy. Yet “the pure glory of having a body and being alive” is something she has felt since she arrived in New York.

The story’s closing paragraphs suggest that Nessa doesn’t need an orgy to understand that sexual freedom is still essential to her sense of self. “Orgy” thus not only delivers insight into the protagonist butoffers a larger view of how the pandemic has collectively affected the lives of people who have taken it seriously and those who have not.

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Okay, so can we say relatable? This book is filled with lust and sex and fun. It also happens to be funny following Nessa around when she does things of the body and skin. She finds all different types of people throughout the book and it's fascinating. I loved this book and hope others will too.

A short story for the pandemic age. A horny woman, a bus ride in a costume, a wild side, and then....that's kind of it.

It's not as scandalous as I would have hoped.

Short stories are hard. Alice Munro has perfected the craft. I think that this could have worked --had it be edited and rewritten a few times.

Great book. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Great flow. Would recommend. Thanks again. Would make a good gift for right feisty person

Thank you for the copy of this book. It was short and interesting and I wished for more. The twist even in the shortness of this book makes me longing for more.

Great job to the writer! Thank you Netgalley and ascribe.

First and foremost, thank you NetGalley for the eARC of 'Orgy' by Kaitlyn Greenidge! This was a different read in comparison to my usual. This way a short story, which allowed for a fast-paced story but I was let down with the content of that story.

The main protagonist is Nessa who is a horny and strong-willed female. I knew that the book being a short story the pace would be quick, but I was left with questions when I finished. Did Nessa and the mystery bus woman ever get together? I felt like I missed something while reading because that end was so abrupt.

The whole story consists of Nessa being invited to an 'Orgy' party and her journey to get there. She leaves her apartment that she shares with her sister and takes a bus to begin her journey. She rides on a bus in a costume and while we read, we learn more about the "wild" side of Nessa as she makes her way to the party.

I just felt this story fell a little short, but I guess that's the key with short stories. I love how we got into the protagonist's mind to find out how she has transformed as a person over the year.

This was not a book, actually short story, for me. I did not seem there was a plot or much purpose of the story.

This was my first Scribd original reading, and it was a fantastic selection by the author of Libertie.

Nessa is a strong willed female protagonist who's unbelievably horny. She's been invited to a party called the Orgy. From getting ready in her fun costume to riding the bus, the reader learns her inner kinks, fantasies and just how lonely a life she's living especially since the onset of the pandemic.

I honestly felt after reading it, what did I miss? And, it ended abruptly and I was left to my imagination if Nessa and the mystery bus women hook-up.

Thank you NetGalley, Kaitlyn Greenridge and Scribd for the complimentary copy.

I was very excited to read this after enjoying Greenidge's novel Libertie that came out earlier this year. I thought it was a great book!

I liked this story- short stories are little slices of life, and I haven't encountered much fiction involving the pandemic (which is fine- we get enough of it in real life). I wouldn't say it's focused on the pandemic, but that the pandemic has an important role to play in making us understand Nessa's loneliness, isolation, and her subsequent questionable decision making:

"She is so many people’s third-tier friend—not worth the risk of sharing a restaurant meal with. It is a cold reckoning at the end of the world."

As expected, the writing is perfect- I love Greenidge's style, and this story is no exception. It's a great balance of snark, wit, and lovely observations of the everyday. Greenidge presents complicated people well, and Nessa is complex. I think it says a lot that we get a pretty solid grasp of who Nessa is in this brief amount of time.

One beautiful quote I loved:
"She plays her favorite game, one she invented when she first moved to New York: Who on this bus would I sleep with? The fun of the game is to figure out how to answer, Everyone. She challenges herself to find something attractive, something beautiful, in every adult her eyes come across."

There are many beautiful things about Nessa, and I think I will start playing a version of this game myself!

This short story was an interesting premise, and one I would recommend for a slightly different read. Of course, with short stories, you can never delve too deeply into the characters or storyline, but it was an entertaining read.
Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t know this was a short story when I started reading it. Anyone that knows me knows I am generally not a fan of short stories. I find you don’t get enough time to figure out who is who or what on earth is going on, and I find there’s just not enough to keep me interest.

Having said that, even though this book got straight in to the action, I didn’t feel lost. I knew who was who and what they were doing and feeling and thinking. I could instantly picture it.

Having said that, I do feel there could be more to it. Although that could just be because I’m not a fan of short stories and am used to my stories being more padded out.

Pandemic books are already coming in thick and fast and I enjoyed that this wasn’t the usual story we’re already seeing. It shows a positive, almost fun aspect and shows us we can still live our lives, even if our lives are a bit different now.

CW: COVID-19 pandemic

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribd Originals for an advanced electronic copy of this text in exchange for an honest review!

Nessa is starved for connection, so when she receives an invitation titled "Orgy," she puts on her pig nose and tail, and against the protests of her cousin and the white boy that's been staying in her cousin's bed, she goes out into the night. So much has changed since the arrival of the pandemic, and it has been months since Nessa has felt another person's skin. What will await her at this party?

I didn't expect this to be a short story (I suppose I didn't read the fine print), but I think it worked really well that way. I appreciated the way the author talked about desire, and though I don't have any personal experience with the types of parties the main character attended, I felt like enough of a picture was painted to get an idea of what they might be like and better understand the main character's motives. Short and to the point, an interesting read that I wish there was more of!

This read was completely different to my normal genres that I read. Firstly j didn't realise that it was a short story, which wasn't a problem at LL, in fact I quite like a book I can wizz through! Secondly, from the blurb I expected more comedy in it than what there actually was. I liked how this feels like an open book and how it portrays that women want this sort of thing too. To be honest it wasn't my sort of read but I can totally understand other people enjoying this!
Thank you to NetGalley, Kaitlyn Greenidge and her team for allowing me to review this!

Orgy is about girl named Nessa who moved to Brooklyn to study nursing but ended up using the money for her studies to rent her first apartment and just live her life the way she wanted to be. She has this risque attitude and is very impulsive. The story opens with Nessa dressing up in costume as she's been invited to a furries orgy. Well, the orgy turned out to be a big joke as it was just another ordinary party except that it's happening during a pandemic. So folks, spoiler alert: no orgy happened. But what's interesting in this short story is how Nessa's experiences and desires were unfolded. Her desires were not only limited to the physical ones; the yearning and longing goes deeper into her soul. I wish I could see more of Nessa's past to truly understand her present self. For a short story, I find this really engaging but I hope Nessa's story could be expanded more.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC of Orgy by Kaitlyn Greenidge.

Orgy is a short story set over the course of one night following the protagonist, Nessa, from her apartment which she shares with her sister, Laurie, through Brooklyn to a party she was invited to by her ex girlfriend’s current girlfriend.

I enjoyed the way in which we see the events of the night unfold from Nessa’s perspective and her interactions with everyone from her sister to the strangers on the bus to her ex.
It is well written in which we get to see how multi faceted this one character is as she comes to terms with how she has transformed over the course of the past year.