Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I am only 15 pages in, but that's it. Jeanette Winterson is one of my favorite authors. Her writing is THRILLING to me. She just does whatever the heck she wants! People clutching mops, being hoisted upwards by balloon to clean the mess of words from the sky...a house with no floors but furniture suspended by chain over abysses...!!! Maybe these things will tie together, maybe they won't, but I do not care. I am stupidly happy to be on this ride.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Looking back this fell apart for me 3/4ths of the way through. I like the themes and the plot, but the writing style was inconsistent and by the end of it I felt meh.
This book renewed my faith in Jeanette Winterson after I was really underwhelmed by Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Loved all the references to myth and fairly tale :)
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Marvelously strange & flowing & bending & refusing to be contained by time, place, personhood. Especially cool to have read right after confessions of the fox; thirty years before that book was written, and they both speak as reflections of their own time and style of queer gender & queer time & queering resistance, with 17th/18th century London as a backdrop. The Thames and Tyburn, scoundrels and whores and heroes and strange ones. The dog-woman. The author engages with fatness in a way I am uncertain about, tho I don’t see it as fatphobia; there was a strong enlivening quote about a woman’s fatness as power, expanding to take up the space she deserves. And still. The subtext. And the author’s lauding of explorers, of Columbus and others, as hero’s, as boys whose whims are indulged because they are heroes - if it was wholly condemnatory, it was subtle. I like my conquistadors thoroughly bashed. There was in any case a good deal of bashing in this book, satisfying and squealingly squeamish. It was so strange, I might need to read it again some time.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A beautiful, bizarre, experimental, grotesque, sorrowful, delightful novel that packs a lot into a small page-count.
Jeanette Winterson plays with ideas of time and scale in this strange book, which turns back on itself at several points. The characters are both ripped from fairytales - the Dog Woman, the Twelve Dancing Princesses - and also wholly and horribly human.
It's an experience to read. The moment you think you understand it, it slips through your fingers again.
Jeanette Winterson plays with ideas of time and scale in this strange book, which turns back on itself at several points. The characters are both ripped from fairytales - the Dog Woman, the Twelve Dancing Princesses - and also wholly and horribly human.
It's an experience to read. The moment you think you understand it, it slips through your fingers again.
Every now and then, I end up with a book because I got it confused with something else. I'm pretty sure that's how I found Sexing the Cherry. I'm so glad that I did. The book had been hanging out on our bookshelf for a while, it's a slim volume, just 167 pages. I thought it would be a good change of pace from the lengthier books I'd been reading. I got a few pages in, and began to realize that this small book contained the universe. I have read some great books lately-- but this one changed my entire perspective multiple times. If you are looking for a read that inspires, awes, and flips you upside down-- this is the book for you. I know that this was the first of many times I will read this book. Thank you, Jeanette Winterson, for sharing your unique genius with the world.
challenging
mysterious
medium-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
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No