Sex Goblin

by Lauren Cook

A weird, wild ride across non-narrative vignettes and dryly funny aphorisms exploring the shared intensity of violence and the erotic. 

As if hauled up squirming from the bowels of the internet, Sex Goblin metabolizes sex writing, popular culture, and autofiction to present the real and the imagined as equally surreal possibilities. In the narrator’s childlike voice, all things become both mundane and strange—a child and their dog fused after a car accident, moments of tenderness amidst frat hazing, witches, and hiking accidents. At turns charming and bizarre, Sex Goblin channels sexual violence through the lens of the absurd to alchemize shame and abuse into something that registers differently than trauma. Sex Goblin is a barely factual but deeply felt field guide to relationships and relatability.

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry, Fiction, Queer, Transgender, LGBT, Audiobook

178 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2024

Reviews

[Natalie Marlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The knife's edge of sex and violence, comedy and profoundly blunt misery, mania and self-loathing, reduced into book form with a structural approach that renders—with the most lucid accuracy I've ever seen—the whiplash of scrolling a social media feed and seeing someone post their most inane dumb thoughts for a laugh before a morbid, startling, spiraling cry for help via self-flagellation. Sincerely hope this goes down as one of the defining postmodern weirdo transsexual books of our time. 🐾

[Jessica Ranard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am truly obsessed with this book. Feels so sexy and red and insane and I don't even know where to begin. Like something that doesn't exist meets random thoughts meets gossip and cock and like it made sense that the book was entirely red and the paper smelled like being high and the book felt that way too. I am sad I am writing this review without sharing parts of the book because I dog eared so many pages, and yet, my book is at home and I am here. This might also make sense, but it also might not: the book made me think about the book release of the book, which would of course be like a party, where all your crushes are there & the author would be wearing a floral dress and doc martens and every person there would get a single red rose and champagne mostly everyone would be trans or against the gender binary and it would be the kind of group that's starting to reclaim the word transexual if that make sense? Anyways. I bought sex goblin even though I have no money but I don't / could never regret that decision. A new favorite.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were interesting moments but overall my emotions about this book can best be described as:What.

[Will Lyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I differ from my roommates because I like hearing the man who lives upstairs cum”

[katryna · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was my in between book my heartbreak book my half a bottle of malbec on my bedside table book my gross book my vermilion book my i-love-when-people-are-weird book my oh-my-god-i’m-so-tired book i actually liked this quite a bit even the parts that felt elementary felt intentional and at the end of the day who doesn’t need to hear “if the moon can be half-full and half-empty then so can the glass. the glass waxes and wanes!!!!”

p.s. i found a note i left myself scrawled along the bottom of the last page of this that reads “i danced alone in my room to stop myself from calling him and now i’m one hundred percent sure that was the right decision”

i don’t even remember who Him was

c’est la vie

[Arcadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"my thoughts are my Bible I don't even question them at all and I'm always right"

Really very good. I found this book incredibly life-affirming, a read that arrived to me in a moment I was feeling crushed by life and the woes of being a sex goblin myself. Laughed out loud a lot reading this and sent pics of different bits to friends here and there to share the mirth.

The aphorisms and vignettes that compose this book feel deeply personal, a glimpse into Cook's brain, but speak to a common humanity, the common thread that has been made so visible by the internet, social media, we are all the same, our experience of life is quite common at times, the abuses and the joys, and we all find a lot of similar things funny.

Again, something truly peaceful about this book, even through the violence, or distances, or failures. Everything is fine, because we've practiced how to make things fine time and time again and have learnt how to make everything fine. We have all learnt how to tell ourselves stories: how to transform our pain, how to talk to ourselves an extend the same gratitude we have for others unto ourselves (with more success at times than at others).

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

after the odyssey I went on to get a copy of this book, I am both relieved and pleased to say that it is, in fact, good. i probably will elaborate later but i thought I'd start with that.

[lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted this book for a while so I’m VERY happy to say it was a fun read!!! Super random though but I’ve been feeling the same so super slay time to read it! Maybe? I guess!!!

[lily w · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and beautiful and funny and made me cry but I was emotional that day

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanna write a book like this 😈

It was kinda perverted in a great way

[Bryan Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

So there are a couple of segments that are basically just thesis statements which may be a bit ridiculous but I appreciated the acknowledgement that you can't tell who is narrating half the time. The book is a mix of purportedly true tales, stories from the perspectives of fictional characters that sometimes serve as trans metaphors, and random thoughts/jokes. The author sums it up on page 140: "It becomes about not separating life from art because I consider the things I think off the top of my head to be my best art."

Anyway I literally laughed out loud a few times. And the dog fusion story is going to stick with me for better or worse. 

[Antonina Swietlicka · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m sorry, I can’t, don’t hate me, grunge rupi kaur

[Chanel Chapters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgic snippets reminiscent of 14 year olds expressing themselves on tumblr - diary like entries about observations, musings and their day.
Short fictional stories, random lists, funny statements and aphorisms. Felt like a “relatable” reddit thread.
Smells like a library in the 90s.
Red pages my dude, red pages.
“Google contacted me to tell me stop googling “swollen lymph nodes” everyday…they said I was annoying them”

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tone reminds me somewhat of Joe Brainard. The stories are much more outrageous though.

[Addie]

how i’ve been feeling recently. confused

[Sam (superblomper) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most perfectly bizarro blind buy

[Beauregard Francis · Rating 1 out of 5]

wow! this fucking sucked

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Couldn't tell if this took itself seriously ? Some great and memorable parts, like how kissing your cousin is less reprehensible than talking about kissing your cousin. Good points. Wanted more cohesion surrounding the sex goblin of it all. Wanted to know more about that, have that be pushed forward as more of a unifying theme. A lot of the tangents and stories just seemed kind of like stuff I'd add to meet pg count in a workshop but were interesting in the moment. I think this book makes sense to the author, is genuine to the author, and that kept me going.

[lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic i loved it... like when you realize kind of too late (lack of interoceptive skill) that you're very thirsty, so you pour a glass of water (in a nice glass... maybe even your favorite glass) with a couple ice cubes (special) and drink it all at once over the sink (so that you can drink it really fast and maybe even spill some water in the throes of thirsty passion)... a wonderful and uncomplicated feeling... really good decadent sexy book YUM thank you

[Audrey Tollett · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first it felt a little too much like a copy paste of a notes app but by the end I felt pretty charmed actually.

[Anita Perlikiewicz-Homco]

I’ve skipped rating this book for now because I’m still just not sure how I feel and giving it a three feels too low.

[Paloma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna let me borrow this book and I kept it in my red purse for a bit and a piece of gum I had in there got stuck to it so when I finished the book I wiped the cover off with Windex and now it smells like Windex plus the strangely comforting acrid Play-Doh smell the pages already had. I think probably it's the dye from making them red. Christ I loved this so much and I also loved Anna's notes scribbled on the margins and I realized I didn't know what her handwriting looks like! I got a rash on the back of my hand while reading this and last night I scratched it so much it's starting to scar. Okay I loved the thoughts about the spiders and Darwin, also Predicting the future is often times not even a beneficial power for the protagonist to have. All you can do is what you can muster to will the future you want. Wait there's so much more I loved but I expect it all to come back to me at random times during my life which is so exciting. I love when I read stuff like this. It just all feels very important in a mysterious magical way.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know if this is for everyone and it’s more so reading someone’s blog than like short story colllection to meeee … I think ppl who felt like this was so surprising just need to read more blogs anyway review I wrote on the flight:

This felt like reading a blog post. Is this how u guys feel reading my blog. Maybe I blog in hopes of one day writing auto fiction. This was cool it was comforting to read thoughts that challenged the way I’d think and related to depravities and isolation. Hazing scares me. Super quick read also inspired me to write some blog posts. Fun and thoughtful and chill

[Lauren Hough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes app mode

[Michaela Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely baffling and entertaining. I loved it.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shelved as "non fiction" but it's prose poetry IMO. The beginning 20 pages or so really gave me a laugh. I loved the story of a dog attached to a girl. Some more continuity would be appreciated. I'm rating it low because about half of it is quite lackluster, but it's still special to me because I got it from City Lights with Maci and read it aloud on the balcony and in the rowboat. Dreamy.

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read that was still very thought provoking, at some moments I found myself laughing out loud and then by the next page I’m disgusted by what I’m reading.

[Rye · Rating 4 out of 5]

love it. funny, sometimes steamy, sometimes gross.

many underlines!

[Naomi]

Like reading the notes app on your phone but, unlike mine, with poignancy

[Jordan Wickham · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking weird.