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2shainz 's review for:
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
by Alexandra Kleeman
challenging
dark
hopeful
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:
Complicated
I first read this one about eight years ago and gave it one star. I have vague memories of a visceral, negative reaction. I'd also yet to see any David Cronenberg or The Substance and to receive appropriate mental health diagnoses.
For the first two thirds of the reread, I was struck by how prescient it was - this really felt like a book for right now, and I give Kleeman major props for being ahead of her time on just how stupid late stage capitalism would get.
Once we hit the third act, the book weakened for me significantly. The dissociation/derealization was such a strength of the first parts of the book. That's still certainly a theme of the final third, but plays out much more bizarrely and to the detriment, imo, of the emotional punch of the overall story.
I also picked up on a great deal of living with trauma and its effects on adult relationships from our narrator. The only inklings of family we get in this book are the disappearing dads, with familial relationships interchangeable (though imperfectly - the confusing residue of them remains). Family being nearly entirely absent from the narrative didn't feel accidental. I highlighted several spot-on passages about attachment and enmeshment and how they relate to the search for identity, meaning, and connection while being bludgeoned to death by advertisement, by the near command to be a good, uniform little consumer.
All in all, I'm glad I tried it again.
For the first two thirds of the reread, I was struck by how prescient it was - this really felt like a book for right now, and I give Kleeman major props for being ahead of her time on just how stupid late stage capitalism would get.
Once we hit the third act, the book weakened for me significantly. The dissociation/derealization was such a strength of the first parts of the book. That's still certainly a theme of the final third, but plays out much more bizarrely and to the detriment, imo, of the emotional punch of the overall story.
I also picked up on a great deal of living with trauma and its effects on adult relationships from our narrator. The only inklings of family we get in this book are the disappearing dads, with familial relationships interchangeable (though imperfectly - the confusing residue of them remains). Family being nearly entirely absent from the narrative didn't feel accidental. I highlighted several spot-on passages about attachment and enmeshment and how they relate to the search for identity, meaning, and connection while being bludgeoned to death by advertisement, by the near command to be a good, uniform little consumer.
All in all, I'm glad I tried it again.