Hello Lovelies and welcome to my first sexy book review!
I do have a few other books to review but, having seen all the hype about Gillian Anderson’s “Want” (including from Still Searching For Prince Charming, you can read Holly’s post here) and knowing how much my readers love a review, last week I decided to hop on Amazon and order myself a copy. I could have gone with a cheaper Kindle version, but I decided to fork out just over £15 for a hardcover copy instead. There really is nothing quite like settling down with an actual, physical book, is there?
Alright, let’s get onto the review!
Who Is Gillian Anderson?
If, like me, you hardly watch TV, one of the first questions you might have to ask is… who is Gillian Anderson? Most known for her role as Dana Scully in X-Files, Gillian Anderson is a British-American actor, writer and activist. Gillian has publicly come out as bisexual.
First Impressions
There’s always something exciting about having a physical copy of a book, isn’t there? Kindle is great, but books are books! There are things on the physical copy of Want that would be missed on the Kindle version, most notably, the switch on the front cover is lightly embossed, making it stand out somewhat. I like this playful if poignant symbolism: A switch, because switches – just like our fantasies – turn things on. Nice!
Inside the cover is sentences that begin with “She wants…”, and followed by something a woman might desire in her relationship. The text is grey on a black background, with the word “want” highlighted just once in soft pink.
Gillian’s introduction is both captivating and familiar: She shares growing up in a household where sex was neither taboo nor encouraged, and how her fascination with female fantasy was inspired by reading Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden. As a teen, sex was never something that was forbidden to me either, but I was told that women don’t like to have sex – that we simply have sex to please men. Gillian’s introduction promises to empower women to share their sexual desires and lifting the veil on the once-secrecy of female fantasy. Enough! Let’s explore the sensual minds of these beautiful souls.
Further Reading
At the end of each fantasy, there is a small amount of detail that tells you something about these otherwise-anonymous women: Their nationality, religion, salary, relationship status and whether they have any kids. The idea behind this, Gilian explains, is to demonstrate that successful women can desire to be deeply submissive, and a stay-at-home moms can have the most ravenous sexual desires, too. It is, she explains, to normalise the desires of women.
The first few fantasies I sort of read as neither here nor there; neither hot and steamy, nor totally bland. These are fantasies, let us nof forget, and as such, there is nothing “dull” about them. They aren’t my desires, but that doesn’t make them bad or wrong.
Quite a few aren’t particularly sexy, and even, some actually made me feel quite sad. There was one woman who wondered how her life might look if her husband was dead (she loves, him, she said, I wasn’t completely sold) and another who wanted her boyfriend to propose to her. Maybe I felt sad for her because my once-boyfriend has already done the proposing bit, so I can be totally biased there.
One woman I did relate to strongly, a disabled and polyamorous lady. I wanted to applaud her and high-five her for speaking out against the fetishization of women (and people) with disabilities. Although that hasn’t happened to me as such (I’m neither a wheelchair user, nor an amputee), I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to have my disabilities fetishized.
On the whole, though, I found the writing style of a lot of these fantasies… well, perhaps a little bit morose. Some happily filled a page or two with their elaborate fantasies, but others used this opportunity to talk about things like simply wanting to be hugged by their emotionally-distant-seeming partner. If you are looking for the next best thing since Fifty Shades, this ain’t it.
Master Levi’s Verdict
Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about this book is what happened when I left t unattended. I don’t mind people reading my books (just don’t lose my page or I will end you in your sleep!), so when Master picked it up and read a few of these ladies’ fantasies, I was more than happy to have a conversation with him about the, and this book on the whole. It’s good for partners too, right? It’s good for partners of women to know what women want.
Master’s verdict, too, was that the book was well-intentioned, but that it ceased to be anything out of the ordinary, or that hadn’t been heard before. Some fantasies are quite sizzling, sure, but there’s nothing much to get you off about a woman who just wants to be loved.
“I can see what Gillian Anderson is trying to do” he says, and that’s just it: We can see what Gillian is trying to achieve, but that’s pretty much as far as it goes. Overall, I found this book quite monotonous and sad at times, and at other times I wanted to scream at these women that they actually might get some of what they want from their partners if they just, you know, communicate.
Final Verdict
Just okay, Not too spicy, not too revealing, not too anything really. It has a Desperate Housewives feel to it for me: A bunch of women talking about what they want in relationships, but nothing about how to get what you want in your relationship (I might suggest Just F*ck Me! for that). Nothing about communication, or the psychology behind why we might have some of the fantasies we have (Carl Jung’s shadow self theory, for example). It’s a nice collection of wants and fantasies, sure, but it ceases to offer much value to relationships or growth. Overall, we’re giving Want a 3/5.
What Do You Want?
Oh lovelies, it would be so cruel of me to review a book of female fantasies without giving you a taste of my own imagination, wouldn’t it? It is so tempting, but I won’t, for I am nice ;)
I think, romantically and in terms of polyamory, I just want someone who can be straight-talking with me and others – no games and game-playing. I want someone fair, patient, honest and respectful – someone totally normal, relaxed and fun too, rather than someone anxious but Instagram-worthy!
But my strongest sexual fantasy kicks in whenever I go swimming. There are family changing cubicles which are much bigger than the ones for single occupancy, and it is my desire for a guy to find me attractive and invite me into one of the family cubicles where we have rough and unprotected sex – where, with a fistful of my hair, he tells me to stay silent while he makes a mother out of me. After that, he completely ignores me, not caring whether I have his babies or not.
So there you have it, that is my “want”. Enjoy! 😉
That’s it from me for this post! Have you read Gillian Anderson’s “Want” yet? Leave a comment below or read more review posts!
Until next time!
Stay safe & have fun,
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