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katieshumake 's review for:
Bad Behavior
by Mary Gaitskill
The taboos in relationships are explored--resentment, self-hatred, self-doubt, the desire for dominance, the battle for power--how these things impact the way relationships are created and unfold and how we either sustain or end them.
Gaitskill looks at romantic, sexual, platonic and familial relationships and illustrates them with sufficient complexity and honors their dynamic nature. The way we feel about ourselves and each other change over time and the way we feel about ourselves influences how we feel about others and vice versa. We're capable of reducing people to fit a niche in our life, whether through cruelty or idolization, and then ignoring, resenting and demonizing them when they fail to meet our expectations. With self-reflection, we can come to terms with accepting that all relationships and people are flawed, that our expectations can be lofty and/or ill-defined, and recognizing how our perceptions impact the trajectory of the relationship.
In Bad Behavior, Gaitskill shows people at different points in coming to this realization, and what I like best about the book, that most of our relationships lack closure yet we still carry around the weight of them when we reckon with ourselves and other relationships, regardless if those relationships predate that of the past relationship.
This is a great book if you're looking for something that explores the complexity, uneasiness but also fulfillment of relationships and can appreciate that not everything has a neatly wrapped ending--we carry on because it's the only thing we can do.
Gaitskill looks at romantic, sexual, platonic and familial relationships and illustrates them with sufficient complexity and honors their dynamic nature. The way we feel about ourselves and each other change over time and the way we feel about ourselves influences how we feel about others and vice versa. We're capable of reducing people to fit a niche in our life, whether through cruelty or idolization, and then ignoring, resenting and demonizing them when they fail to meet our expectations. With self-reflection, we can come to terms with accepting that all relationships and people are flawed, that our expectations can be lofty and/or ill-defined, and recognizing how our perceptions impact the trajectory of the relationship.
In Bad Behavior, Gaitskill shows people at different points in coming to this realization, and what I like best about the book, that most of our relationships lack closure yet we still carry around the weight of them when we reckon with ourselves and other relationships, regardless if those relationships predate that of the past relationship.
This is a great book if you're looking for something that explores the complexity, uneasiness but also fulfillment of relationships and can appreciate that not everything has a neatly wrapped ending--we carry on because it's the only thing we can do.