Book Review: Revenge of the Orgasm

Revenge of the Orgasm: (An Erotic Autobiography). The Greatest Poet Alive. GPA Media LLC, April 7, 2013, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 64 pages.

Reviewed by Sarah Sadik.

This book is filled with multiple autobiographical experiences of sexual encounters. The author relives each scenario down to its minute details, referring to skylines, taxicabs, and things simply laying around where his sexual escapades occurred. Each poem references aspects of life that we all have witnessed, whether through sex or our daily lives. He talks about retrieving power (and the importance of it), love, and agony. The poems resonate with feelings that pull at our heartstrings, yet they leave the reader feeling a little disappointed.

The author’s anonymity thanks to his pseudonym, Greatest Poet Alive, implies that the women in the poems are objects at his disposal, and he has immense power in every sexual situation that he encounters. 

Every character is left up to the reader’s imagination; however, the Greatest Poet Alive has the ability to snatch that opportunity from us.

In the foreword, the reader is confronted with a man who comes off as arrogant and narcissistic. It is unclear if his writing is sarcastic. It is clear, however, that sex is a main focal point in his poetry. The issues of power, lust, agony, and hatred arise. The arrogant man that is shown in the foreword has the ability to fade within the themes that are presented in his poetry.

The constant struggle for power between man and woman became infuriating halfway through the book. It seemed as if the author’s sex became empty and meaningless—the goal of sex was just power and nothing else. The joys of love dissolved like empty words on a page, and the arrogant man who thought he deserved praise had returned. I became distracted by the man’s behavior instead of focusing on the writing. Every sexual encounter in the book was written with such detail and perfection that the author seemed to contradict himself with the sloppiness of his wavering focus.

I felt the book was amusing, overall, however unsatisfying. The author’s narcissistic behavior set the tone for the book. Every sexual encounter was detailed well, but it was muddled under multiple themes. I applaud his attempt to capture the mystery and abruptness of a sexual encounter, though he was not triumphant. To improve the book, perhaps the Greatest Poet Alive could make a clearer distinction between sarcasm and narcissism.