so-soI had a lot of issues with this book but as you can see I also marked a LOT of sentences/passages for future reference. I ran out of book darts and had to start using Post-it flags! I‘m still not completely sure this wasn‘t satire - the MC was so comically pretentious and self-absorbed that I think she may have been intended as a sly parody of a certain type of artsy hipster grappling with middle age. In that light it almost worked.
#shelfsweeper
CSeydel I just couldn‘t relate a woman feeling the way she did with a child as young as hers - 7 years old. It‘s one thing when your kids are grown and you turn 50 and suddenly realize that not only are you no longer “mom” but it‘s also too late to go back to the sexual image you had of yourself before becoming mom/wife. But she has her child‘s whole life ahead of her and she‘s not at all interested - she‘s solely fixated on her sexual identity. 20h
CSeydel I also found it off-putting the way she milked the drama of her child‘s traumatic birth. She has this whole thing about not knowing whether the baby would live or die, and in that moment reality split and she had two babies, one alive and one dead, and she “refused to play favorites” between them. But her child didn‘t die. She doesn‘t seem to care about the actual child, just the attendant trauma as a formative thing that happened to *her*. 20h
CSeydel In other words - she‘s shockingly ungrateful for all the blessings and privileges she has had in her life. This is common of course, we all take so much for granted, but someone as navel-gazing as this unnamed protag should at least recognize all these good things, even if she can‘t emotionally connect with gratitude. 20h
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RaeLovesToRead It's difficult to tell with autofiction how much of the writing is a caricature and an outlet for the unpalatable aspects of their character, how much is self-aware satire, and how much is in earnest. This one felt like all the awful crap that society tells women (voiced concisely and depressingly in Susan Sontag's On Women, for example) came to life in an explosion of awfulness. Which I found mesmerising and despair-inducing. 19h
TrishB Well done on finishing for all the reasons outlined. 19h
RaeLovesToRead If you want to torture yourself further with a narcissistic, sex-obsessed MC whose antics make you feel grotty, I recommend The Pisces by Melissa Broder. You won't thank me 🤣🤣 19h
CSeydel @RaeLovesToRead Oh, I like how you put that! It is rather hard to pin down and that‘s an interesting lens through which to view it. I‘ll be pondering it, certainly, even though I can‘t say I enjoyed it. It was at least well-written. And I‘ll keep The Pisces in my back pocket for now - I‘m in need of a palate cleanser next, but who knows? Maybe I‘ll read it later, just to see 👀 19h
CSeydel Thanks @TrishB ! I couldn‘t help myself - I had to find out where it was going 19h
TrishB I can‘t remember at what point I bailed- I just knew wherever it was going I wasn‘t going! 18h
charl08 I'm about two chapters in and got distracted by other shiny new books. Nor sure if I'll pick it up again before it's due back at the library... 18h
BarbaraBB Kudos for finishing it and all the notes taken. Great review. I totally agree on the mc being selfish and unlikable yet I was also strangely intrigued by her. I think Miranda July has been able to write a book that affects everyone who read it in one way or another and I admire her for that 17h
RaeLovesToRead Hahaha I was joking... do NOT read the Pisces haha. It will make you feel even WORSE than All Fours. NO PALATES WILL BE CLEANSED! 17h
CSeydel @BarbaraBB Absolutely! It was certainly well-written, and thought-provoking. (edited) 17h
CSeydel @RaeLovesToRead 💀 17h
Lesliereadsalot I really liked this one, crazy as the story was. Great review! 11h
CSeydel @Lesliereadsalot Certainly a lot to think about! 11h
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