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kyky70123 's review for:

Two Girls Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill
4.0

I think that this is the kind of book you need to read slowly. You can’t skim over any of it because you need to take the time to examine the meaning behind every sentence, every word before you can fully comprehend what Gaitskill is trying to say. I think I struggled to empathise with Justine and Dorothy because I haven’t connected with someone like that in so long to the point that every gesture or look clearly has hidden meaning. I also can’t remember the last time I felt that many emotions. I’ll probably read this again when I’m older, when I’ve experienced more of the world so that I can have a better understanding of what Gaitskill is highlighting about the world. It was good though, I just don’t think I have the capacity to appreciate it properly.

Dorothy though was a great character. Her struggles with her body and the hatred she harbours for it but the need to protect it and care for it because nobody else will. The expectations she built for her initial meeting with Granite and yet when Justine gave her the response she wanted to hear she wasn’t sure how to react. Her constant wavering, her overwhelming loneliness that she has somehow convinced herself she is okay with. Simply because she is overweight she’s convinced herself that she isn’t worthy of saying what she wants to, especially with the affair. She can’t see a place for herself in society. These romances have no place for someone that looks like her. The idea that someone could even want her sexually was so foreign to her because the only sexual experience she had came from hatred and abuse. Then when she eventually reads the article and her emotions become so heightened and all these fears she had about being judged and having people perceive her in certain ways just disappear.

Justine on the other hand is completely self aware and knows that the way she lives her life isn’t fulfilling but she does nothing to change it. She accepts that in another universe there’s a more successful version of herself but makes no attempt to try and become better. Her childhood self who gave in to peer pressure and the need to be accepted by others, ruined her ability to form meaningful relationships. She relies on sex and the fact that she’s basically a masochist to have some control over her emotions. If she allows these people to hurt her then when they leave it won’t affect her because they were jerks anyway.

The ending of the book was lovely for me because these two women who have lived such different lives and who barely understand each other yet somehow know each other so completely have just given in. This complete exhaustion has forced them to accept that maybe they don’t want to be lonely anymore and maybe they want to be loved and to love and to not simply be judged for things they did and didn’t do.