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This is my second Eimear McBride book. She writes in this stream of consciousness style, reminds me of Virginia Woolf. You have to really pay attention when you read or you will get lost. I didn't find myself as emotionally invested in this one as I was with The Lesser Bohemians. It is also less challenging to read than The Lesser Bohemians, but still takes some mental work. I found it lovely and stimulating. Love what she does with words.

"How bright it is, big city New Zealand. Precisely how big she does not yet know. But at the flick of a switch it has become a great deal more prominent and she has receded again. Now pierced red in hand, in head and breast. A wrong-sexed St Sebastian skewered beside a dormant volcano. No one will be making any art films about her."

"Outside the sky‘s a horror of fight and bruise. Velour black, pumped with racket, gored by orange."

"To be perfectly frank–as she is to herself–the, approaching fetid, adult clientele also fail to seriously assert their presence, beyond peripherally. An unwelcome thought this, the thought of them: walking, being, unconsciously imbibing the air as though it‘s a rightful allocation of theirs which will never run down."

Challenging read, although easier than A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. I was left not really understanding the story. Bits of it were really good however

Probably my last book of the year. On paper McBride should be a perfect fit for me. I enjoy experimental work and stream-of-consciousness but I don't have any strong feelings about her writing. It tends to follow over me without leaving much of an impression...

I like EimearMcBride writing but this one I‘m just not in the right “place” for this one right now.

Eimear McBride is an author whose works I often have to circle back to because I have to be in the right place or mood to tackle her experimental or dense prose. I had a similar experience with Strange Hotel, where the words on the page are largely an internal dialogue as a woman enters a hotel room alone...except then there are multiple hotel rooms, and she isn't always alone. ⤵️