Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - Her Body and Other Parties

‘Her Body and Other Parties’ is a beautifully written and complex short story collection which has left me with a lot of mixed feelings. The work is very experimental, both in prose and form and I really enjoyed how provocative that made each short story. Each story explores the different and violent ways women’s bodies are exploited, whilst also leaving the reader to create their own interpretation for each ending.

Like every short story collection, the quality of the work is uneven and the meanings behind each story are differing levels of abstract. My favourites are ‘Real Women Have Bodies’ and ‘Difficult at Parties’. I enjoyed the abstract nature of ‘Especially Heinous’ but given I have no knowledge of Law & Order: SVU and the entire short story is a rewrite of the episode plot summaries it wasn’t the easiest concept to understand.

Ultimately, there are stories in here which I liked significantly more than others—usually the ones that tread the line between absurdist and concrete in meaning (Difficult at Parties and The Husband Stitch) but the collection is definitely not as flawless as I’ve been lead to believe by other reviewers. I still think this is worth the read for anyone who enjoys complex explorations of feminist concepts and some fantastical, absurdist plot beats.

I’ll definitely be picking up more of Machado’s work in the future; her prose is too decadent and her concepts too intriguing to not. For a debut collection, it’s definitely pretty solid.

My individual ratings for each short story are as follows:

The Husband Stitch—3.5

Inventory—3

Mothers—2.5

Especially Heinous—2

Real Women Have Bodies—4.5

Eight Bites—2

The Resident—1

Difficult At Parties—5

Content Warnings

brookesinfinitebooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This short story collection really blew my mind. Machado’s prose is so haunting. It slithers into all those parts of our brains where we hide ugly realities of the world from ourselves and teases them out. I felt so understood as a woman, a mother, someone who’s struggled with body image, and someone who grew up in a conservative environment.

I would absolutely recommend this book because it’s an incredible examination of modern femininity and sexuality. However, I highly suggest you check out content warnings first. There were several stories that affected me more than I expected, and many trigger points. I had to take this one very slow, in small doses. Which works perfectly for a short story collection - I read one story every few days.

These stories are definitely going to stick with me for a while. A few I particularly enjoyed: Mothers; Real Women Have Bodies; The Inventory.

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miamcmillan's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i’m not entirely convinced i like this book but it is incredibly Present in my thoughts and my friend pearl said this provocativeness was conducive to a piece of art and i think they’re completely right. some of the stories made an overwhelming impression on me and some i can barely remember but it was an out of body experience reading this book and i felt almost separate from myself. some thoughts i had while talking about it with pearl because i think they are the best way of describing how i feel:
- it feels so overwhelmingly 21st century to me and i feel that’s not what the author was going for so in a way i feel guilty for not interpreting it like the artist but then stupid for that because art is supposed to be interpreted by the onlooker but then it makes me wonder whether actually she intended for us to have a collective reaction after all and she’s just a genius at creating it im not sure
- the resident has affected me so deeply i think the line that’s sticking with me is when one of them calls the speaker ethereal because to me she felt almost cumbersome but not in a bad way. it was eerie and beautiful and i cannot get it out of my head
- i keep thinking about how some of the stories were so obvious and some were absolutely incomprehensible (to me)
- especially heinous felt like a mixture of both to me. like it confused me as a concept but it was also weirdly addictive and beautifully done and i keep coming back to it. the almost positive ending felt disjointed in the context of the collection but it was even more strikingly hopeful because of that. i also like associated it so strongly with b99 in this like hazy summer soup of just gotham city energy that it almost removed any law and order intention or themes around it and it was so interesting to see how it affected me in a way i’m not sure it was supposed to (but then again maybe it was). maybe because the city was breathing and bleeding and heart beating so much i felt connected to it (in a way it reminded me absolutely unintentionally of the weird evocative mess of new york and the contrast with the version i read of it in detransition baby)
- real women have bodies had a line about fingers being tied into grommets which was intensely unnerving
essentially i don’t think i liked the experience of reading it at all but i also liked it for making me uncomfortable. i think some stories personally will stick with me more than others and some i will probably forget. i think overall it is very much worth reading just to see what resonates and what doesn’t. a very interesting and subversive debut <3

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