pickI‘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. 2d
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. 2d
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. 2d
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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. 2d
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! 2d
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. 2d
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. 2d
Sparklemn The tampon scene was unbearable but I was dying to learn how it all turned out. Glad I finished it. (edited) 2d
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) 2d
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. 2d
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. 2d
so-so
