Reviews

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

luhos's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

I really wanted to like this but in the end, I didn't.

In Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl we follow Paul who has the ability to change his body at will. Paul is finding himself and a bit of a mess, and we follow him as he moves between cities and between lovers.

I felt like so many characters were unresolved, including Paul. The beginning two thirds especially felt incredibly fragmented and the whole thing felt burdened by queer cultural references. I did enjoy the latter third of the book a bit more, but still, it seemed to go on a bit much with not a lot of plot or character development. 

Paul's shapeshifting quality felt almost pointless to me - I ask myself, would this book be any/much different without that? and I think that no, it wouldn't. I was excited by the premise but ultimately disappointed by the execution.

And one more thing that grinded my gears with this one - why the hell are the chapters so disparate in length? The penultimate chapter is 10 pages, and the final chapter is almost half the book. This is so inconsequential but it still really annoyed me, especially because I don't like to break in the middle of a chapter.

anneisontime's review against another edition

adventurous

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

cillehh's review against another edition

adventurous funny reflective medium-paced

4.75

kpur's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

kyleclavelle's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

transpinestwins's review

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No

3.0

Paul is the most obnoxious person in your college’s queer social club—or he would be, if he weren’t too self-consciously cool to attend more than a few meetings.

Undeniably well written, and made me laugh as much as it made me cringe in recognition. Paul is deeply flawed but always compelling, and this balance generally worked for me—though sometimes it really didn’t. The degree to which his cruelty and selfishness are ignored by the narrative is frustrating.

It never occurs to him that Tony Pinto’s calls might be about an AIDS diagnosis (despite this being painfully obvious to me, given the date and the tenor of the messages)—instead, he flatters himself that his old boyfriend is begging for him back. And why not?

Everybody adores Paul, though nobody so much as Paul himself. It’s not a crime to be self-obsessed to the point of blindness towards other people’s feelings, but it does make our hero increasingly hard to love.

All that said, I can’t relate to most of the complaints I’ve seen about this book—I thought the sex scenes were great, hot and effective at what they were trying to invoke, be it pleasure or disgust. Similarly, I don’t mind the lack of explanation around the magic elements

(though I wish we had seen/heard more about Diane’s powers)

. Lawlor is clearly taking a magical realism approach here, with Paul’s ability to transform being more an extension of his personality than a physical reality. The “how” isn’t the point. I do agree that the ending felt weak, though it might have worked better for me if Derek had more of a presence outside of the last ~20 pages. He’s more of an archetype (a Christopher, or a Ruffles) than a fully realized person (a Diane or a Jane), and he didn’t mean enough to Paul to be the catalyst for Paul’s final moment of self-acceptance—ending a relationship on his own terms, rather than molding himself into what his partner wants him to be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

theogb451's review against another edition

4.0

Exceptionally good writing I felt. Easy to read prose and lots of character seeping through but still incredibly witty and literate. In the end I felt like it wasn't quite 5 stars because the ending felt like the book runs out of steam. Lots of little untied stories run through this and while that's fine I'm the sort of basic guy who loves a book to have narrative plot run through it. Still, it's hard to begrudge such an amazing piece of literature its place in deserved praise.

sarapadula's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

cloelia79's review

adventurous dark emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Loved this book - from the concept as a way to discuss gender, to the writing, to capturing a picture of the US queer places at the end of the 80s. A book I will return and reread again and again!

beckallanpoe's review

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

3.0