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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
funny
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this when it first came out and was delighted by the Ayn Rand parody. I read (and enjoyed) Rand in high school but didn’t take the philosophy seriously, so it was fun to be in on the joke here. But this is more a story of damaged people—damaged women—finding unexpected comfort in an unlikely friendship. Ms Gaitskill has a special talent for describing the sordid and painful and making it uncomfortably relatable. I’ve read others of her stories over the years, but this one always resonates.
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Tremendously enjoyed this novel! I had read the Secretary short story after the recommendation of my dear friend, Sarah. The novel was also her recommendation. If the structure of the novel displeased me (each chapter alternates between Justine and Dorothy, our two girls), I could not help but to find myself equally enchanted, petrified, and delighted by Gaitskill's cutting prose. The subject matter is harsh, it's unforgiving, and it's told coldly (think Clarice Lispector or Ingeborg Bachmann). It's a terrible story to read and yet I couldn't help myself coming back to it, although I read as slowly as the novel's pace. Sure, you could criticize the discourse around sexuality and how it's affected the characters, but I have rarely encountered discourse in a novel that's this nuanced and complex. A lot of the passages rang true to me, not to out myself as a freak (but maybe a little). And I really feel like Gaitskill exercised perfect restraint--there was so much in between the words, and it never said too much. This was the perfect book to fall back in love with fiction after my brief-ish break from it.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes