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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“It’s hard just to look, isn’t it? It’s hard to look, and not touch, not squeeze, or prod, or squash all that soft, private skin they show me.”
4,5 stars
4,5 stars
challenging
dark
tense
really easy for me to read - but lowkey left me feeling schizophrenic???
dark
Al principio estás así ¿¿?? todo el tiempo, y tampoco ves el punto de la historia, solamente ves a una protagonista insufrible. Sin embargo, a medida que avanza y se va yendo todo de madre (aunque debo decir que pensaba que se iría todo aún más de madre), empiezas a entender qué pretendía mostrar la autora con el libro, y me parece que ha elegido una trama muy original para hacerlo.
This book is an acquired taste I apparently don't have. I thought I would be getting "female American psycho" but that's not what it felt like to me at all. I thought the protagonist being a fetish photographer was original, but I just kind of hated the story because she's so toxic and hard to read. The only character I liked was Eddie from Tesco.
The whole edgy Northern England party/arts scene felt too niche for me to enjoy as an American. There were lots of slang words my Kobo dictionary couldn't even define so I felt like it was lost on me. Unclear ending and not sure why people compare this to a female serial killer story. Maybe you'd enjoy it if you're into the dark arts scene, photography, drugs, etc.
The whole edgy Northern England party/arts scene felt too niche for me to enjoy as an American. There were lots of slang words my Kobo dictionary couldn't even define so I felt like it was lost on me. Unclear ending and not sure why people compare this to a female serial killer story. Maybe you'd enjoy it if you're into the dark arts scene, photography, drugs, etc.
About 6 months ago I DNF’d Wake up and open your eyes by Clay Chapman I thought the concept was an interesting take on right wing media but I couldn’t get past the author using words like “fam”. Bro talk is instant line drawn in the sand for me!
Months later I’m reading this book which is LITTERED with slang and foul language…but I loved it! The prose are easy to digest and the northern humour shines through in this book which would explain why it resonated with a northern lad like myself!
Notes I made whilst reading this address the protagonists mental state, she is quite clearly unraveling and I felt she was using her photography projects to manage some trauma. The trauma I felt came from the teacher who groomed her in high school and her mother, who is a complete witch!
There’s an interesting sub text throughout this book that comes from her friend Flo who writes and publishes blog posts that document Irena’s abusive behavior to her and her models. She has access to these blogs and reads them frequently but doesn’t act upon them. She doesn’t at any point try to change her ways or redeem herself. She is utterly toxic but strangely like-able.
Throughout this book I didn’t once feel sorry for any of the models that willingly aloud themselves to be objectified until Eddie! I really felt bad for him especially in light of his recounting of the abuse and grooming he experienced when he was 14 at the hands of his older brother’s friend Ben. Irina completely exploits him. This is the one part of the book where I genuinely started to dislike her and couldn’t see any redeemable qualities I felt she once had.
By the end of the book Irina confesses to a violent, murderous past but throughout the book she comes across as an unreliable narrator who is clearly spiraling with the aid of drugs and alcoholism and so the question is- did she actually murder the homeless boy or is it all just one big hallucination? I ask this because throughout the book she alludes to her violent past and nobody takes her on. There’s Flo and Michael who address the red flags from the start but there’s also a whole lot of shrugging off from various people throughout this book.
Is this a nod to how society seem to easily shrug off sex offenses and violence when the perpetrator is female? It would fit in with the central theme of the protagonists objectification of men being seen as art.
That’s my take on it but what a brilliant dark and funny book! It made me feel the way I do whenever I read Ottessa Moshfeig which is a win win for me! I’ll definitely be reading Clark’s other novels after this!
Damn I thought Verity was fucked up - this book was brutal! Irina is by far the most unlikable protagonist I’ve ever read & I’ve never rooted so hard against a main character. I have to give the author her flowers though - this was… unpleasant (which is much better than boring). It was entertaining & evocative, I just wish the plot went somewhere.
this book is a lot more fun to metatextually analyze than it is to read [3]
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes