Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
genuinely bizarre, wonderful and weird. at times felt very lost, but i found the explorations of time and memory moving and expansive. i loved the constant look at past, present and future being mere constructs in which we navigate and exist in between. i loved the images of the cities we build, and the way multitudes are all around us. being my first read by jeanette winterson, the boldness and pride it takes in it's strangeness was exciting, and the late 80s feminism felt clear. touches on the illusiveness of history and meaning making, and the disgust and confusion of man. reading some interviews with her recently, it's fascinating reflecting on the way herself and her views exist within her work over time.
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
So my two favorite Jeanette Winterson novels both have fruit in the title. The New York Times Book Review said, "Sexing the Cherry fuses history, fairy tale and metafiction...." It does a lot more than that, too, if you are willing to hop on the boat and go for the ride. If you need lot's of action, action, action and a tidy linear narrative, this may not be the book for you. If you love beautiful writing and unpredictable reads, give this a shot.
adventurous
challenging
funny
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
This book confused me slightly when it came to considering to what extent I liked it. I enjoyed each section when taken individually, particularly the stories of after the ever afters of the Dancing Princesses, and the civil war and plague. However, I struggled more with the connections between these different narratives, and felt that, at times, it became overcomplicated for the sake of being a postmodern novel.
As a feminist text I enjoyed reading the representations of men and women, including their bodies and sexualities. There is much debate to what extent this text is man-hating, and can either be read as such, or as a (potentially exaggerated, admittedly) reality of the treatment many women experience at the hands of the patriarchy.
As a feminist text I enjoyed reading the representations of men and women, including their bodies and sexualities. There is much debate to what extent this text is man-hating, and can either be read as such, or as a (potentially exaggerated, admittedly) reality of the treatment many women experience at the hands of the patriarchy.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Perplexing and a slightly dizzying, the book is beautiful. It is, as most of her books are, a complete and utter delight to read. At the same time, I found it to be lacking in the emotions that tore at me when I read Lighthouse Keeping and Written on the Body. The fantasy element is amazing, especially the inclusion of the twelve dancing princesses, but there's not much more that I can say of it beyond that.
It's a Jeanette Winterson book and is excellent because she's a great writer, but there was nothing that left me hollow and aching afterwards or desperate to read more.
It's a Jeanette Winterson book and is excellent because she's a great writer, but there was nothing that left me hollow and aching afterwards or desperate to read more.
I first read (or attempted to read) this book in 1997 for a seminar on contemporary British writers. It was my last semester of undergraduate study; I was 21 years old. The initial text for the class was Granta issue 43, a collection of short stories by notable young British novelists. We divvied up the list of writers from the table of contents and tried to find copies of their novels to report on. It was a brutal winter in a small college town in North Dakota. We were not very successful. (Although I was able to locate one of my assigned books on a website that one of my classmates recommended. It was an experiment in online bookselling called Amazon.com. Perhaps you have heard of it since?)
The near-impossibility of finding the texts is only one of the reasons that the class was a disaster. The professor was easily distractible and could be led off on tangents that consumed the whole class period-- that is, on the rare occasions when we actually had class. She lived miles away on a farm in Minnesota. It was, as I've already said, a brutal winter. Even on days when there wasn't an actual blizzard, she often cancelled class to attend to her flock of sheep.
I was one of the few students who actually got the opportunity to make a presentation (on Louis de Bernières). By that point I'd already given up on this book, which I couldn't make heads or tails of despite my best efforts. It's always nagged at me as unfinished business, especially as I've read other Winterson novels in the past few years and enjoyed them. So when I saw a glowing review appear here recently, I just knew it was a sign I should try again.
This time I managed to get through it in just three days! I'm definitely a more sophisticated reader now, with much more understanding of English history to draw upon. However, I still don't know how I would have fared without those other Winterson novels under my belt. This is a difficult work any way you slice it, and it definitely helped that I already "speak Jeannette Winterson." If you haven't already read and loved some of her more accessible novels, I wouldn't start here. But if you have, it's well worth the read.
The near-impossibility of finding the texts is only one of the reasons that the class was a disaster. The professor was easily distractible and could be led off on tangents that consumed the whole class period-- that is, on the rare occasions when we actually had class. She lived miles away on a farm in Minnesota. It was, as I've already said, a brutal winter. Even on days when there wasn't an actual blizzard, she often cancelled class to attend to her flock of sheep.
I was one of the few students who actually got the opportunity to make a presentation (on Louis de Bernières). By that point I'd already given up on this book, which I couldn't make heads or tails of despite my best efforts. It's always nagged at me as unfinished business, especially as I've read other Winterson novels in the past few years and enjoyed them. So when I saw a glowing review appear here recently, I just knew it was a sign I should try again.
This time I managed to get through it in just three days! I'm definitely a more sophisticated reader now, with much more understanding of English history to draw upon. However, I still don't know how I would have fared without those other Winterson novels under my belt. This is a difficult work any way you slice it, and it definitely helped that I already "speak Jeannette Winterson." If you haven't already read and loved some of her more accessible novels, I wouldn't start here. But if you have, it's well worth the read.
This was a really beautiful and nicely melancholy book, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what it's about.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No