perimenopause

All Fours | Miranda July

pick

Did well at the Salvos in Dubbo over the festive season. Grand total = $27.45 as I used my credit. The skirt has shorts attached for me to wear to ballet. I love an enamel dish to cook in. The bag of toiletries includes Elemais products which I love to use. The necklace appears to be made using a tea towel. I was very happy to score both books as I had been hoping to find them for a while.

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Gissy

All Fours | Miranda July

pan

June 2025 Book#2

This one is going #offmyshelf @wanderglynn It didn‘t work for me. I found it so exaggerated and even histrionic in the way situations were managed or explained. What about menstruation it was like the topic is something out of this world🙄I still don‘t know why this book was in so many awards lists. I know mine is an unpopular opinion🤷🏽‍♀️2⭐️Almost bailed it.

Gissy #Read2025 @DieAReader
#BookSpinBingo # 2 (buddy read)
#ISpyBingo (number) @TheAromaOfBooks
#Tob25 1w

BarbaraBB This is such a dividing book. People either hate or love it! 1w

CarolynM Not an unpopular opinion, as many people hated it as loved it, me included. Pretentious twaddle. 1w

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Gissy @CarolynM I tried but the book is going to another home☺️ 1w

Gissy @BarbaraBB Agree 1w

DieAReader Off the shelf👋🏻 1w

Gissy #LitsyAToZ2025 (letter J last name) @Texreader 1w

Texreader I did bail. Ugh. I didn't even make it past a few pages. So I'm impressed. 1w

Texreader @CarolynM Amen!! 1w

Gissy @DieAReader Yes! 🙌 1w

Gissy @Texreader I should bail it too but I was trying to understand why so many people like it, why this book was in so many awards consideration lists. Maybe I was doing a reading choices research 😂🤣🤣🤣 1w

Texreader @Gissy I really wanted to do the same, and hoping for a gem. There had to be a reason why it hit all the lists. But I couldn't stomach it. 1w

Tamra Love the word “histrionic” - big turn off! 1w

TheAromaofBooks At least it's off the list!! 1w

41 likes14 comments

monalyisha

All Fours | Miranda July

pick

I‘m supposed to have strong feelings about this, right? But, I guess…sometimes I liked it a whole lot (eg, “I stood holding the note with that funny little abandoned feeling one gets a million times a day in a domestic setting. I could have cried, but why?”) and sometimes I felt like rolling my eyes — HARD (eg, “The future itself was another lover, reaching backward in time to cup my balls”). I bet Miranda July gets that a lot. 👇🏻

monalyisha 1/6: I neither loved it nor hated it — or…maybe, I loved AND hated it. But “love” feels too strong a word for a reaction to isolated sentences or thoughts and not to a whole. To love well, you‘ve got to love a person (or a book) in their wholeness. 1mo

monalyisha 2/6: You can‘t make them excise pieces of themselves to earn your love. You have to just figure out a way to embrace them and let them be — or at least find the “them” that you love *inside of* the thing you don‘t like; each trait has a negative and a positive expression. But I don‘t really want to let certain things in this novel just “be.” I‘d rather they weren‘t there. 1mo

monalyisha 3/6: And actually, I know July lost a lot of people with the tampon scene…but she lost me (and then roped me back in, and then lost me again, ad infinitum) when the narrator was preparing for “the dance.” I kept thinking, “This is *still* happening? All of this? Really?” I want to use the term “self-indulgent” but it feels bad. 1mo

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monalyisha 4/6: Usually, I feel like women aren‘t allowed to indulge themselves often enough; that‘s a huge part of July‘s whole point (and one that I agree with)! But in the particular case of this novel, I was definitely left wondering if short stories would be a better format for her. And then I remembered that she‘d published a (?) collection already, which has been languishing on my shelf for the better part of a decade. 1mo

monalyisha 5/6: So, I‘m sorry for thinking that July is “too much” and for trying to make her smaller…but maybe I should stop apologizing? And also stop ending my sentences with questions? Unapologetic confidence! Let the (book review) world *beg* to cup my balls! 1mo

monalyisha 6/6: I know, for certain, that I found this compulsively readable. And I appreciate that the MC neither drives nor flies (nor parks) at the end. She walks. That feels like the character growth we all needed. 1mo

ChaoticMissAdventures The Barnes and Noble in my MI's picked this for their October book club and her and I talked about it a lot - a lot about this "too much" idea and what women are "allowed" to do. She was so excited, 7 or 8 people had signed up with her and she wanted to talk about her evolution in thinking about the book. When she got there every single other person bailed and it was just her and the B&N manager! She said they still had a good talk. 1mo

Sparklemn The tampon scene was unbearable but I was dying to learn how it all turned out. Glad I finished it. (edited) 1mo

monalyisha @ChaoticMissAdventures I picked it for my book club (back at the end of last year; we plan a whole year out). I foresee the rest of the book club members/my friends being mad at me about it — and saying “Nope” a lot. 😅 But maybe they‘ll surprise me! What sorts of things did your MIL have to say? (edited) 1mo

monalyisha @Sparklemn I understood the intimacy she was/they were after (and the boundaries that were being intentionally transgressed; didn‘t Fifty Shades notoriously do something similar?). I think it was once she was back at home and still obsessing, with no end in sight, that I became the most uncomfortable and frustrated as a reader. 1mo

ChaoticMissAdventures @monalyisha she was really glad she pushed herself! This is not the type of book she would normally read but she is trying to not be in a rut since retiring. She had a lot of the same feelings as you, the thought of what women are allowed to do, even in fiction, also the comparison of male mid life crisis vs perimenopause. She was also super interested in the sexual aspect, how the MC and the guy have a sensual relationship w/o actual sex. 1mo

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Gadolby

All Fours | Miranda July

pick

This is a wild story. Bizarre, unique, totally worth the read. Sometimes cringey, but also revelatory. It has an unabashedly earnest and honest voice about what it is like to lose yourself in middle age as a woman—sexuality, madness—all of it

1 like

Billypar

All Fours | Miranda July

pick

How much you like All Fours may depend on whether you see a hidden thesis statement about relationships in middle age. But I don't think July wrote any lessons - in fact, it probably took a concerted effort to avoid them. The strange journey the main character takes, if not objectively realistic, felt true to people's struggles to reconcile sexual and relationship needs when they diverge. And way more interesting than the usual cheating narrative.

TheKidUpstairs Great review. I read this one with Camp Litsy last summer, and was fully prepared to hate it - instead I loved it. It was definitely a marmite book, people had VERY strong opinions! 4mo

TheBookHippie @TheKidUpstairs me 😝🎯 I HATED it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ It was a love or hate reaction from readers, I think too. 4mo

BarbaraBB Great review. I loved it too! 4mo

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AmyG Yes. Well said. I enjoyed it, too. It was wild. 4mo

Billypar @TheKidUpstairs Yeah, this one definitely fits into what you mentioned about Bunny. I expected to like it but not as much as I did. Polarizing books are always interesting to me. I know the main character was a dealbreaker for a lot of the bad reviews - not sure if that was true in your case @TheBookHippie ? 4mo

TheBookHippie @Billypar I think it was an insult to women, and a dangerous premise to say this is what women are at this stage. I abhorred the main character yes, but advertising this and publicizing it as how and what women want and are at this stage of life in the climate we are living in is both dangerous and an insult. That was my bigger issue. I found it distasteful on all levels. (edited) 4mo

rebcamuse I was trying to get through all the #TOB2025 shortlist, but put this at the end of the pile and never got to it (largely because a person I know who seems to share similar reading tastes suggested I deprioritize it). Such wide-ranging reviews! 1d

Billypar @rebcamuse I was aware of people talking about it, but I avoided specifics, so I went in pretty free of expectations. Even though it never breaks the laws of reality, I never felt like July was trying for realism, so I think that helped me enjoy the ride, instead of questioning 'who would ever do this?' if that makes sense. Definitely not for everyone! 1d

45 likes8 comments

Julsmarshall

All Fours | Miranda July

so-so

This was strange, thought provoking, and honest(maybe more than I would have liked). I understand the discussion around it and suspect I‘ll be thinking about it for awhile.

47 likes

Lizwarnerpdx

All Fours | Miranda July

pan

I hate read this because I couldn‘t figure it out. Not my style at all. Turns out it‘s about perimenopause and the emotional, mental, physical changes. I‘m ok with the marriage, relationships, parenting styles etc but did not need the sex/fetishes/fantasies and the chaotic mental vomit that felt like a personality disorder.

1 like

vonnie862

All Fours | Miranda July

pan

Ummmm...I was really close in DNFing this book, but I was curious to see if the MC would find closure and/or made some growth. Did she? I'm not so sure.

I did appreciate how the book touched on topics regarding sexuality (especially as we age), motherhood, gender, menopause, postpartum/trauma, and identity. However, I was not expecting to read how horny the MC was or about all her masturbation and sex escapades. ⬇️

vonnie862 Her treatment of her husband saddened me and kept wanting to shake her to be honest with him. I simply did not like her.

This book was not for me. 5mo

vonnie862 2 ⭐️ 5mo

Daisey I felt very much the same about this one. 5mo

CarolynM I think you‘re being generous. I hated her. 5mo

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Eggbeater

Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis | James L. Swanson

#WDNCW #WeDoNotCareWednesday.
@dabbe

We do not care that when we complain about having our period for 19 days straight, you consider that too much information. If we have to live with it, you have to hear about it. 🩸

We're in #perimenopause , and we have no filters anymore. 🤣

TheBookHippie Oh I am sorry 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 so annoying.. 5mo

Karisa 19 days?! 😱 Peri sometimes feels like a continual line up of new betrayals of the body. Going to be so glad when the period part is done! 5mo

Prairiegirl_reading I thought once every two weeks was bad!! Peri is an asshole. I‘m sorry!!! 5mo

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CatLass007 Overshare away. May I tell you what my bowel habits have been since my surgery? 5mo

Eggbeater @CatLass007 But of course, my dear. If you have to live with it, the least I can do is listen. Doesn't bother me. 💩 5mo

Deblovestoread Ooof, I‘m sorry! When my periods changed from bad to worse I had an endometrial abalation which solved my problem. Not sure if it‘s a thing anymore but ask your doc. 5mo

AnnCrystal That's terrible 👸😶‍🌫️😵‍💫👌🏼💝. 5mo

Amiable I ended up having to have a surgical ablation to finally stop the persistent heavy bleeding when I was going through perimenopause — I feel your pain! 5mo

CatLass007 So sorry about your perimenopause p pain and troubles. Peri was a bear to endure but the relief of never having another period is priceless. You will get there. 5mo

CBee Dropping in to say that I can relate 💯 except, I also had an ablation and while it‘s tricky to figure out when my cycles will stop and I fully enter meno, not having periods has been bliss. Peri IS an asshole indeed @Prairiegirl_reading 5mo

45 likes10 comments

Floresj

All Fours | Miranda July

As a 49 yo woman, I felt that parts of this book were so well written and hilarious, and other parts were so “WTF?”. Like a raunchy comedian who is so funny…and then tells a joke that makes you think “ok, that‘s too far.” I‘m not sure who or if I‘d recommend this, but I flew through it in 24 hours, and am both confused by and understand completely what I just read.

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