A review by jesselopod
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

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

4.0

Superb audiobook reading. I thought it was awful but then I realised that it was just the main character that was awful. This book is what I wanted my year of rest and relaxation to be. It read like Effie from Skins got into photography and got infinitely more mean. At first I thought this book was gratuitously excessively unhinged, but as I kept reading I found the concepts the book was exploring really compelling.
Although I was frustrated that it took as long as it did to drop the hook into the story surrounding “my boy”, I really loved the way the author handled the slide into unreliability as Irena’s reality dissolved around her, and I really enjoyed the emotional roller coaster the author put you through as a reader, how she played around with empathy the reader feels for her alongside her unforgivable cruelty. 

The ending was very abrupt. I like that there is no resolution to knowing what is and isn’t real, but I also felt the story didn’t really reach a conclusion either. With a tweaked ending I think I would have rated it much higher.


I viscerally hated reading much of this, it felt like watching a car crash, but I also didn’t want to stop listening to it. I don’t like horror as a genre, but I’m glad I read it. 
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