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rustbeltjessie's review against another edition
5.0
A review which is really more like me writing a gushing love letter about this book. Because a review would be all objective and critical, and this isn’t. This is just me telling the world that this book is everything. It made me cry, and if something can get me to tears I know I love it. This book, this book. It’s a myth, a fable, a diary, a scrapbook, a love letter, a memoir, maybe. It talks a lot about the nature of truth vs. lies and fact vs. fiction, which is something I think about so often. And I want to quote every line; write them on the walls. Some of it is so like my life. Some of it is nothing like my life at all, but it made me feel that I had lived it. I just. Read it, okay?
meganmilks's review against another edition
5.0
I AM READING THIS NOW!
edit:
I HAVE FINISHED READING THIS! had to take a break because it was too emotionally intense to absorb while stressing about other stuff the past months.
there's so much to this book, it is difficult to draw lines around. it is a grief narrative, it is a retelling of the epic of gilgamesh, it is a memoir, it is a revision, a love story, a collage, a meditation on meaning and uncertainty. an excerpt:
“Sex had started feeling like being lonely in a crowd of drunks, then pissed on from a balcony. And even that was an accident…
But then I found [Gil]. After we kissed- her mouth pulling my lips like they were nipples – after she pushed me open so wide I bled a smeary ring around her wrist, after I hiccuped sobs and dug trails in the paint on her wall and slammed my fists down against her back, and after I felt like a muscular black-winged horse had flown out from between my thighs then burst open like a star, after she held my shuddering, transformed body, she told me I was hers.”
and:
"The ones who know the great sorrow of death are the ones who remain alive to mourn. Grief is all the living know of death. And grief, let me tell you, is unbearable. It never fully passes. When someone we love dies, the one we had become in relation to them also dies, but we're forced to stay alive with this dead part inside."
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gina abelkop's review is much more insightful than mine: http://htmlgiant.com/reviews/the-vicious-red-relic-love/ .
edit:
I HAVE FINISHED READING THIS! had to take a break because it was too emotionally intense to absorb while stressing about other stuff the past months.
there's so much to this book, it is difficult to draw lines around. it is a grief narrative, it is a retelling of the epic of gilgamesh, it is a memoir, it is a revision, a love story, a collage, a meditation on meaning and uncertainty. an excerpt:
“Sex had started feeling like being lonely in a crowd of drunks, then pissed on from a balcony. And even that was an accident…
But then I found [Gil]. After we kissed- her mouth pulling my lips like they were nipples – after she pushed me open so wide I bled a smeary ring around her wrist, after I hiccuped sobs and dug trails in the paint on her wall and slammed my fists down against her back, and after I felt like a muscular black-winged horse had flown out from between my thighs then burst open like a star, after she held my shuddering, transformed body, she told me I was hers.”
and:
"The ones who know the great sorrow of death are the ones who remain alive to mourn. Grief is all the living know of death. And grief, let me tell you, is unbearable. It never fully passes. When someone we love dies, the one we had become in relation to them also dies, but we're forced to stay alive with this dead part inside."
--
gina abelkop's review is much more insightful than mine: http://htmlgiant.com/reviews/the-vicious-red-relic-love/ .
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