Book Reviews (July)

Two books with pink covers and one I couldn't read

July was a good month because I basically finished my degree and unleashed myself on the planet with an excuse finally, for not having an answer to that very rude question, “so what do you do?” I traveled alone to Italy to meet my most artistic and fascinating friends who were taking acid in ocean caves while loud opera blasted against the rocks, creating a trippy surround sound for even those too anxious to take psychedelics nowadays (me). Then to France for a family holiday in which we laughed more often than cried, an unusual success. I always travel with about three books which makes me sound incredible but is just because I am always almost finished one, so have to bring a back-up, but then make the mistake of entering an airport bookshop where I am seduced. Usually in an airport bookshop I stand baring witness, motionless and disgusted at the ever growing section called: “#Booktok”, like witnessing the skin on your upper arms loosening.

Anyway,

Cecilie Lind - ‘Girlbeast’

9/10

Published by Prototype, one of my favourite publishers, ‘Girlbeast’ has a beautifully simple cover that is white and pink. For once, that is not why I bought it. I bought it because I was researching books about girlhood and the satanic lunacy, brilliance and terror of being such a thing and the internet threw it up on offer. It is sort of hybrid and poetic and a reverse Lolita and makes one think of lambs and pink sparkly nail polish and the smell of blown out matches with an undertone of petrol. This book is deeply unnerving and beautiful and horrible about a teenage girl who has a romantic relationship with her friend’s dad. But, it’s also about boredom and beauty and the male gaze and friendship and sex and freedom and questioning what is the shape of the space our bodies take up in the world and how to make it smaller. I gave my copy to a friend who gets it and she confirmed that it is goosebumps-up-spine.

R.F. Kaung - ‘Babel’

5/10

I couldn’t read this book. I don’t really know why. I started it in July and I am still reading it now, sometimes. I hate it for not being finishable when I know that that is not even really its fault. I think my first mistake was believing that I could get into historical fantasy. The locations were nice - Oxford, Hampstead, China (so far), and some of the characterisation was believable. I also felt marginally cleverer learning the latin roots for a lot of words. But reading it was at times a chore and other times just annoying. I have still given it a good rating because it is so extensively researched and probably made a lot of fantasy readers very happy. Also because it probably really isn’t bad, it’s just me that was the wrong reader - just like I was always the wrong person for school.

Gillian Anderson - ‘Want’

6/10

It feels blasphemous to give such a bad rating under the name of our saviour, Gillian Anderson. But, she didn’t really write this book at all, which she is very transparent about. It is a book comprised of the sexual fantasies of women all over the world. The majority are in the Western world. It has a sexy pink cover and I bought it in an airport and then immediately regretted having to carry such a heavy book around. And also felt mortified to read it - literal literary porn - whilst sat next to a fat old man on the plane peaking over my shoulder, his bulging eyes widening slowly. It was also a bit of a turn off to hear a baby crying nearby and the air hostesses interrupting me with a plastic bag for rubbish. I have not finished this book, though I think it is an important book to exist. I think it is a book that should have a new edition annually as we track fantasies beginning to incorporate AI more. I am sure it would go out of print as our imaginations atrophy across the globe. It is a brilliant example of the variety of feminine imaginative and sexual scope and also the fact that we as women are sick fucks, a very necessary thing for people to know and accept.

Christopher Isherwood - ‘Goodbye to Berlin’