This was..... not for me, to say the least. I don't know what I expected, but I certainly didn't expect that a guy would try to seduce his mother and sleep with her. I mean.... too much.

This was an odd collection of stories in my opinion. The underlying theme running through all the stories was lust, but some were very...unorthodox. They were certainly written well, and I have no doubt regarding Lavin's writing skills. Some of them were pretty disturbing to me though, and others just failed to keep my curiosity.

A beautiful exploration of life . It has a soft and simple message. We are all human. We are here and matter.

A short collection of sometimes uncomfortable, always carnal stories about (mostly) older Latin American women and the ways they find themselves giving into their desires (often desires they didn't realize they had or even consciously acted upon - there are a lot of women doing things in spite of their culturally conditioned instincts here, so a lot of almost Freudian symbolism and subtext). Exploring desire doesn't always end well for these characters, and they situations aren't always the best (or even sexy to an outside observer) but there is a strong sense of self-discovery mixed in with the lust. Really well written and really interesting.

I expected this collection to be absurd, but in a good way. Instead, it was just odd.
Maybe two of the twelve short stories are marginally erotic. Mostly, they seem tame and stagnant. Two are more horror than any other genre. Here and there I found some beautifully crafted one-liners. I understand that some of the beauty of a work might go missing during translation, but I am not sure if the problem her is translation, or just that this is an odd work that, disappointingly, did not resonate with me.

This was..... not for me, to say the least. I don't know what I expected, but I certainly didn't expect that a guy would try to seduce his mother and sleep with her. I mean.... too much.

I received a copy of Meaty Pleasures from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Meaty Pleasures is an odd little compilation of stories - different characters that don’t overlap but have overarching themes of lust and humanity.

Some stories were more palatable than others, but overall the piece is an intriguing read.

This is an enjoyable collection of slightly erotic and suggestive short stories by a well-known Mexican writer. They have been translated by Dorothy Potter Snyder.

Many of the stories feature chance seductions and encounters often, but not always, involving vaguely dissatisfied women and written from the woman’s point of view. The backgrounds and contexts are varied and often slightly dreamlike as if the protagonists fall into these sexual encounters almost by chance or are drawn to them and inclined to simply let them happen. There is no sense of abuse; there’s clear sexual longing here.

There is also plenty of variety and innovation in the stories but not a lot of heartbreak or of guilt. One story begins, ‘I shouldn’t have done it. But I couldn’t help it.’ and, in a way, that applies to the whole collection where desire often overcomes polite expectation and commonsense.

It all adds up to an entertaining read. The writing and translation is stylish, sharp and modern and the emotions and the inclinations are genuine. Give this book to your wife for Christmas, and see if things are different in 2022!

Meaty Pleasures by Mónica Lavín, and translated by Dorothy Potter Snyder is a book of twelve short stories from Mexico and translated into the english tongue.
Meaty Pleasures explores eroticism in unknown places and situations with a universe of its own where tenderness finds its match with the cruelty of life. I found this book very weird! Some of these stories was good and others were - what am I reading?!?!?!?!

However, I loved the cover to this book. Sadly this book wasn't for me

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a review copy via NetGalley

This collection of short stories is categorised as erotica, but I think I would say only 1 of the stories was erotic, the rest were a combination of interesting and disturbing. It felt like a bit of a rollercoaster with the 12 stories ranging from enjoyable to totally disturbing. A number of them left me thinking 'surely that didn't just happen?!', although there were aspects of some that were quite relatable and readable too.
I was excited about this as a translated collection of short stories, but I found some of the content just way too much.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this EARC.
I just didn't enjoy these stories, the translation made the writing difficult to understand. The stories were just a little too out there for me.

This is a slightly odd selection of short stories, they have erotic parts but aren't necessarily erotic to the reader (if that makes sense). Reading this book was a bit of a rollercoaster ride with the 12 strories ranging from the enjoyable to the deeply disturbing. A number of them leave you thinking did the author actually write that, or leaving you wondering what just happened.
The author is Mexican and this is an edition translated into English. I found them very readable, most are under 10 pages long (on my ebook reader) and I could easily read one, or two before sleep.

Thank you to NetGalley and Katakana Editores for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I am not sure why I didn't enjoy this book. It may have been the lack of hearty descriptions or that it was several short stories. It was probably a more 'me problem' than book problem. It kept me wanting more and hoping for more in each story unfortunately.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me early access to this e-arc.
Unfortunately, I did not particularly enjoy this particular read.
Meaty Pleasures is a short story collection, translated from Spanish.
It includes short stories that breach the line between desire and cruelty.
This made me expect some pretty dark stories and I was quite disappointed in that.
Since it is a short story collection, there are some stories that I did end up really enjoying. However, for the most part I didn't really enjoy where the story went or didn't see the point.
Sadly enough don't have a lot to say about this one.

What do you do when temptation is too much ? You write kinky little anthologies that let the demons inside of you hit the page. You’d never do these things in real life but your kink can live out loud in stories.

This book was all your whispered desires, your forbidden internet searches. This is that personified. The writing suffers from the translation but not enough that it wasn’t still enjoyable.

Special thanks to the author and the publisher for an ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, remember, “𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓷𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓫𝓸𝓲𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓻𝓼... “🖤

Official title: Meaty Pleasures
My title: Tales of Desire
Author: Monica Lavin
Publisher: Katana
Fav character: The Maid
Type: Book - Anthology
4.2/5

Paleness, seduction and eroticism rule in this Mexican anthology. A compilation of short stories that trade in desire, lust, want and the little temptations that can push you over the edge. Morality and decency are where you’d like them to be. Well-written, each story plays with crossing a boundary. Some are crossed, while others teeter on the edge, but they compel you to wonder.

Here are my reflections on
~# 5: ‘Ow mi goi (Guyanese expression for ‘awwwnnn/poor thing’). Sometimes we want to touch desire so badly, have it overflow in us so badly, that we scare it away in others and are left alone with our unspent desire.’
~#10: WHAT?! WHAT?! WTF?!

I confess that there was very little I could identify with in the stories. There were instances where I recognised the pull of a particular temptation, but otherwise, MEH. The women here are all obedient, family/relationship focussed and enamored of being ‘little girls’. They seem to prefer older men and being instructed, being taken care of (unfortunately most times it went to hell and I was like… 😏). Those have never been my priorities or interests.

If you enjoy reading about temptation and can emphatise with all chosen paths for women, this is a sensual read that I would recommend. I insist you keep your eyes opened, not everything is innocent.

tw: incest, coercive sex, sex under false pretenses, kidnapping, nongraphic death of a parent

The cover art for this book was so good I thought I would enjoy it, especially considering the concept.

But in practice this felt like a mostly forgettable collection of short stories, frequently sexual in nature but not exactly sexy (which is fine if they’re otherwise engaging but I didn’t get that here). There’s a story early on that deals with incest which seems to have really upset readers but it was probably one of the stronger stories overall.

One of my favorite stories in the collection was about an old woman who wanted her neighbors to cut th

DNF at 4/12

**Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
#MeatyPleasures #NetGalley

Pros
+ Mexican woman in translation (Spanish to English)
+ 12 short stories focused on [eroticism, the unknown, and the cruelty of life]

Neutral
/ Postprandial (story #1): a restaurant manager seduces a woman's senses with food and wine (3 stars)

Cons
- You Never Know (story #2): a son looks for his missing mother, finds her, and sleeps with her (1 star)
- Bolero (story #3): a night of dancing and almost cheating (2 stars)
- Roberto's Mouth (story #4): online to in-person cheating (2 stars)
- The first story was alright, but nothing super special. Then the next three were certainly NOT erotic (I don't find incest or cheating particularly erotic...). On top of that, they were really boring. I think the author was going for suspended sexual tension, but for me, it fell completely flat and didn't work. The disconnect could also be a stilted translation. Either way, I did not want to continue on.

TW: incest, cheating

Content warnings: sexual assault; incest; death; graphic sexual content; abduction; infidelity

Meaty Pleasures is equal parts delightful and disconcerting, as Mónica Lavín blurs the line between the carnal and the quotidian. In Postprandial, two of our most basic human needs - food and sex - become indistinguishable from one another. You Never Know is the second story in this collection and follows a young Mexican man's travels through New York City as he searches for the mother who abandoned him as a child - a quest which ends bizarrely to say the least. In Bolero, Lavín conjures the intimacy and physicality of dancing with another person, and in Roberto's Mouth shows how the sweetness from online attraction can quickly sour the first time it takes place in the flesh. On Thursdays tells the story of a voyeuristic hotel employee observing a mysterious couple's weekly rendezvous. What's There To Come Back To? depicts the all-too-familiar pain and confusion and doubt that accompanies many breakups. Ladies Bar sees a young couple explore a famous convent together. In my favourite of the stories, Señora Lara, an older woman embarks on a mission to have a branch cut down to restore light to her home and becomes involved with her politician neighbour. A Foreign Body tells the story of two couples holidaying together whose lives are changed when somebody dies. The Perfect Woman depicts the meetings between a woman and a homeless man in a park, and in The Caretaker - one of the collection's most disturbing stories - a woman wakes up trapped inside a home that is not her own. The book's title story, Meaty Pleasures, is a visceral look into a carnivorous couple and the ritual and ceremony which surrounds meat in their family.

Lavín is clearly a very talented writer, whose brain travels to some weird and bloody places. The success with which she uses second person narration in Postprandial and You Never Know is a testament to her skill, as she Lavín's strength as a writer is no doubt her ability to evoke discomfort and curiosity, which she does particularly well in Roberto's Mouth, Senora Lara, The Caretaker and Meaty Pleasures.

Some of the less impactful stories are Ladies Bar, A Foreign Body and The Perfect Woman, chiefly because the characters are not especially compelling. Lavín's use of the third person in some stories tends also to create a sense of detachment which dilutes the impact of her strange and grotesque themes at times.

I did notice some issues with the editing of this collection. There were a number of typos, as well as some repetition of words. Perhaps the most distracting of these was the overuse of the word 'member' as a euphemism for 'penis' in Roberto's Mouth. However, it may well be that this is a product of translation rather than a deliberate choice on Lavín's part.

I think this is a solid collection of short stories, and I look forward to reading more translated works by Lavín.


A few typos throughout

12 stories about pleasure and sexuality, it seemed very interesting and appealing, but I found myself confused by the time I finished the second story. Others may enjoy