Goals and Resolutions for 2021

Happy new year to you all guys. May 2021 be a better and wonderful year for all of you. As the title suggests these will be my goals and resolutions for 2021. Things that I want to change in regard to my reading goals and habits. So let’s get into it:

1- Read more Erotica sub-genres: I want to read more sub-genres within erotica. I’d like to read more straight erotica, erotica that has representations in terms of race or gender identity. Then more subgenres in the erotica sphere like fantasy, historical, magical realism, science fiction, nonfiction, etc. I have noticed that the majority of erotica books I have read were contemporary ones. So I will try as much as possible to keep 2021 reads more varied.

2- Binge reading: I want to binge read all the series that have a story that continues across all the books. This is one of my major goals. If I start a series then I will finish it by binge-reading all the books. This will be easier with short stories. I will start doing that with the pending series that I have started in 2020 and have not finished yet.

3- Starting from 2021 I will stop tagging authors when I tweet my reviews on Twitter. Some of you guys have reached out to me telling me that this could cause some problems especially if I did not give the book a favoring review. Although I have been lucky in the past and loved the majority of the books I have read, I can understand your point after thinking about it. So there will be no more tagging or mentions in my review tweets. 

4- Discovering authors: I am always in for discovering new to me authors, so I will make sure that I keep reading for more authors I have not read for before. This will help me find new favorite authors. I am still working on a big list of authors that I’d love to read for but have not read. I might publish this list soon and just keep adding names to it every now and then. I honestly don’t think that list is going to finish ever so I’d better publish it soon.

5- The other list that I will publish very soon is the authors that I have read for. That list is almost finished and will include the authors’ names and their Amazon and Goodreads pages. This shall be ready in a few days after updating my December 2020 stats. 

6- In 2020 I have done only one experiment which is the Goodreads Recommendations Experiment. I still have not published my final thoughts about it though. Expect that to happen in January 2021. But my plan is to do more such experiments in the future and I also have a plan of doing an author-specific “Reading Festival” where I read three or more standalone works of the same author in a span of a week. We’ll see how that goes.

These are the main things that I will be focusing on to do from now on. I am truly excited for my reading plans in 2021 whether the erotica reads on my Rainbow Reviewss account or all the other reads on my main account. I wish you all a great year filled with health, happiness, and prosperity. Happy reading! 💋💋

Goodreads’ Recommendations Experiment

Amazon has never worked for me when it comes to recommendations and part of that is my own fault as I own so many books from all genres which make recommending something to be difficult and not accurate. I get from them all different kinds of recommendations. However, it is not the same thing with Goodreads. Checking the recommendations on Goodreads shows that I am getting book suggestions based on the same genre I am reading and Goodreads tells me why it recommended that book based on some other book that I have loved and rated highly. 

Now how much these recommendations are accurate or not I don’t know because I have to try them myself and hence this will be my experiment to read 10 books recommended by Goodreads. These 10 books will be my goal to read for the last quarter of the year starting from October 2020. I will post my review of each book separately then by the end of the year I will make another post with the consolidated results to see how Goodreads’ recommendation system works or does not work for me.

So let us start with the books I have been recommended:

Cabin Fever by Roe Horvat was recommended based on three books I have read, In Display, The Frosh and Wolf and The Three Little Pigs. Now these are all erotica but their themes are different. In Display is more about an open marriage. The Frosh takes place in college and about young guys. Wolf and the Three Little Pigs is a retelling. I am not sure how Cabin Fever resembles any one of these.

Read a book by this author? No

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The Keeping of the Boys Home is a collection of stories by Vera Saint- Luc. This was recommended because I loved The Frosh. Here I can see the resemblance between the two books. They are both telling stories of hot horny boys! So this recommendation might be relevant. We’ll see.

Read a book by this author? No

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Gay Nudist Beach by Shay Lush was suggested based on my liking to Caught Downlow by Thomas Bignall. Again I am not sure what is the resemblance between the two books but I shall know when I read this. The theme of this book sounds fascinating already!

Read a book by this author? No

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Tied Up by Jesse Fuchs is another book recommended based on my rating of Caught Downlow. This story might have some BDSM based on its title. There is also something about a neighbor’s secret. That’s interesting!

Read a book by this author? No

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OK, that is the third recommendation based on the same book! First Class Package by Jay Northcote seems to have a completely different theme than Caught Downlow. The book is free on Amazon if you want to try it.

Read a book by this author? No

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Frat House Boy Toy by Nathan Bay is recommended based on my liking to Couple Therapy. I have read several stories for Nathan Bay from his Bathhouse Confessions series and loved them. It is strange that this was recommended based on a different book and not by the books by the author himself. This might be an indication that recommendations have nothing to do with authors but with the subject and themes of the books. I will know this when I read all these books.

Read a book by this author? Yes

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The Slave Set collection by S. F. Tanner is recommended based on The Frosh (This is the third time I get a recommendation based on my rating of this book). I am not going to read the whole collection. I will read only the first book for this experiment.

Read a book by this author? No

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Tonight by Karen Stivali is recommended based on my rating of Dirty Fighters. I see no similarities between the two stories. One is about two men having a wrestling match that leads to steamy sex and the other is more a romantic story! Could there be any other similarities I am not aware of? Possible. That cover is hot though!

Read a book by this author? No

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Top Me Maybe? is the second book recommended to me by Jay Northcote. I guess Goodreads wants me to read from this author. I want to read something by him as well. The story talks about a secret sexual fantasy! Could that be naked wrestling? lol. 

Read a book by this author? No

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Down of the Farm by Dick Parker is recommended based on my liking to two books, The Frosh and Wolf and the Three Little Pigs. I feel this might be closer to the story of The Frosh. I have read a book by Dick Parker before which is Nudist Resort Lifeguard and I loved it a lot so this recommendation was already on my wishlist

Read a book by this author? Yes

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So out of the 10 recommendations, I have read books by two of the authors. One author appeared twice on this list. By the end of December, I shall make another post showing if Goodreads recommendations system is reliable and whether it worked for me or not. I am very excited about this experiment!

Why Gay Erotica? And my Reading Ritual

A friend of mine some time ago asked me why do I enjoy gay erotica, being a reader himself too but not of the genre. I felt from the way he asked me he was looking down at that genre. Many other readers do the same intentionally or unintentionally of erotica genre in general and specifically gay erotica genre. And it is an upsetting thing when that happens, but I guess the whole thing is like a hierarchy where someone looks down at someone else’s reading choices. I have seen nonfiction readers who think reading fiction books is just a waste of time! So I told my friend that the same way he looks down at my reading choice, someone else will be looking down at his reading choice too. And this kind of behavior goes far beyond reading genres and in other things of life too.

I learned to never belittle someone for his choices and I expect the same from others when it comes to mine. Going back to the main question. Why gay erotica? of course, that friend is gay too and he is a big fantasy reader (mainly the mainstream ones) but gay erotica never clicked for him. He always told me that instead of wasting time reading gay erotica he would rather watch some gay porn and get a more exciting time out of it. I asked him how he reads these hot short stories and he told me like he reads all the other genres. Of course, that is a way to read erotica but I don’t think this is the ideal way. I have my own reading ritual when I’m reading this genre. I need not be disturbed, so I can immerse myself in the story that was created by Gay Erotica Gods. Yes, I call the authors as Gods because they are the creators of these horny stories. They have this power that they transfer to me as a reader to imagine the world and the characters that they have created in my own eyes. I own that power of imagination now. That is true with other genres of books as well, but the different thing is that I create my own atmosphere while reading erotica. I don’t sit still reading and doing nothing. No, as the story progresses I touch myself, I rub my chest. With my eReader sitting on my lap I play with my nipples, rub them, pinch them. I keep touching and rubbing my inner thighs. Holding and groping my bulge, Give my penis some sensual strokes, pulling my balls, rubbing my hole. I don’t do all that randomly but along with the story and the situation. Sometimes I make a pause, close my eyes, and repeat that scene I just read about in my imagination as if I am watching it. Or I reread a sentence or a paragraph that aroused me in a great way appreciating the horny wordings and the atmosphere that the author made for me as a reader. That is what I call putting myself into The Zone! The zone of complete sexual bliss.

And nowadays with creating this site and writing reviews that pleasure is doubled! I’m in the zone first time for reading the story and second time for writing the review especially if it was an intensely erotic gay story. Sitting in front of the PC, with a boner, going through my eReader’s highlights and notes, reliving the sexy tale again, writing about the actions I enjoyed or didn’t enjoy with my penis twitching constantly and leaking all that gay precum while my hole pulsing repeatedly. I won’t lie, even as I am writing this post my cock is stiff and leaking, I can feel that precum in my undies! And the same thing always happens when I browse books online for purchase. My cock just makes the choices of which book to pick up next! Crazy ha? But that is the truth, and I wanted in this post to be as raw and transparent as possible.

To me, gay erotic books and gay porn are two necessities and different media forms. They are equally important, both are very much needed for pleasure and inspiration and they cannot replace each other as my friend suggested. Gay porn presents you that hot horny visual of men doing it all together as per the director’s view. We watch the same porno movie, we see the same actions. Yes, we might interpret actions or situations differently but they will be the same when we are watching the same movie. Like when you see a porn star with a 10-inches dick then everybody sees that penis as a physical sex object the same way, be it its shape, head, skin color, etc. But a 10-inches penis in written literature will be different from a person to another because that will be depending on your imagination. The writer has given you the information but it is your mind that creates the picture. If the writer gave that same penis a foreskin then the type of foreskin that I imagine is different than that you will imagine. As a reader, I tend to choose my favorite features to keep myself aroused and in the zone.

So give erotica books a chance by reading them differently. Try my reading ritual. Sometimes when you read something very arousing pause, close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine yourself in that scene, or in the position of one of the characters. When your cock twitches to a line or sentence read it again, it will twitch again and you know you are loving it. Go with the flow, give yourself the freedom you want to enjoy the story. I remember once I read a short gay story (can’t remember the title) where the author brilliantly had this disclaimer after the cover page that the book was written with the author being completely naked and that the reader should also read it fully naked! my penis jumped to that and I immediately undressed completely getting into my zone where I have nothing but complete sexual bliss! We all need that trance!

Introduction

I am a male gay guy in my thirties who is obsessed with reading in general and sharing my views and opinions in what I read. I post reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and Twitter (New account) and Smashwords.

My big passion is reading m/m erotica books. All kind of erotica whether they are mainstream ones or indie, taboo, dirty or anything extreme. No judgment! Writing reviews about erotica books on sites like Amazon and other retail sites tend to be tricky. Sometimes I have to sensor all my feelings and words which makes the whole thing too vanilla and superficial compared to the book I have read. I feel it does not do justice to the book. Hence, I have decided to start this blog where I can express all what I think about a book or a story freely without censoring my words.

I hope you all will enjoy reading these reviews.
Happy Reading!