Reviews

Woman's World by Graham Rawle

tortoasa's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.0

lindsayharmon's review against another edition

2.0

I read this book after hearing about it in a review on bookslut.com (http://www.bookslut.com/girl_interrupting/2008_02_012374.php). The author wrote an outline of the novel and then went through and assembled the finished product out of fragments cut from 1960s women's magazines. In the afterword he refers to it as artwork, and I appreciated it on that level. The story itself, although pretty ingenious and somewhat entertaining because of all the advertising-speak, didn't impress me as much, though.

bookdragonhoard's review against another edition

3.0

What a strange book. It was given to me by a coworker at the bookstore when she found out I like strange stories with unusual formatting. (House of Leaves was the conversation starter.) This is definitely of the same ilk. Worth the read.

hwillustrator's review against another edition

3.0

I read this out of curiosity and respect for the craft of it - all 437 pages were painstakingly collaged together from 1950s women's magazines - and visually it is an absolute treat because of that. There is this cool mix of typographic styles, emboldened words, italicised words, huge great letters clearly cut from advertisements and occasional images that all combine to evoke the era, yet it remains subversive through absurd combinations. Sometimes this leads to some excellent, bizarre and hilarious phrasing, but towards the end of the book it becomes a little tedious and contrived. Perhaps that is intentional or perhaps the author was ready to slice his own hands off with a scalpel blade after 5 whole years of cutting and sticking? We'll never know. For the concept and visual execution alone, I would love to give this book five stars.

Unfortunately, however, the plot feels dated and really dampened my enjoyment of the book as a whole. The novel verges on the transphobic in its depiction of Norma and Roy's relationship and an early twist takes the novel in an unexpected but not entirely welcome direction. Were I not such a sucker for cut-and-paste typography I probably would have given up after the novelty of the visuals started to wear off because the plot and characters alone certainly wouldn't have kept me hooked.

libkatem's review against another edition

3.0

Weird. It's a work of art as much as it is a novel. The focus on "femininity" and "womanly" (as defined by popular magazines) and even what is considered "masculine" is questioned and challenged in this novel.

bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition

2.0

Interesting idea....but turned out not to be my cup of tea. I got it at the library book sale and it is destined to be re-donated."

lfagundes's review against another edition

2.0

Rawle put a ridiculous amount of work into this book. it's amazing for that reason, but story-wise i was kinda bored. it is a book to be read for its looks, not its substance. maybe that is his point, since it is mainly about feminine appearance

iguana_mama's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.25

lipsmovetheysay's review against another edition

3.0

after reading reviews of this book, i was so excited to read it. it seemed like an incredible undertaking of graphic design as well as writing. unfortunately, i felt as though the former excelled at the expense of the latter. while i could still appreciate the text as an art piece, and clearly a great amount of work went into it, i really thought the story completely fell short. i could see the "big shocker twist" from a mile away and the ending left something to be desired. however, this might be my aversion to period writing showing through--i'm a postmodern girl and i know it.
anyway, i'd recommend this book because it's conceptually amazing, but my caveat is not to get your hopes up too high for plot.

alanathehangry's review against another edition

3.0

This book is trippy. Every word in the book is cut from 1960s magazines and pasted in. It physically pains me to think about how long this must've taken and the mania of crafting a good, riveting STORY from it. I still can't believe it. So much time. So much thought. This book is created with madness and brilliance.

At first, I was like wow boring it's this housebound girl trying to be the perfect homemaker and then the story explodes in your face and you're 100% caught off guard. This also means it's incredibly hard to put down. I finished it in just six days because of that!

It kind of screws with your head, the madness of the character, until you realize what's actually going on. Then I was flipping back to earlier pages and looking at it from a completely new perspective. It's a mind-bender and a really crazy experience. Definitely recommend people trying it out!