“I am a continent, but I will not hold.”
Her Body and Other Parties is one part psychological thriller, one part science fiction, one part folklore, but equal parts feminist literature. The sum of its parts is a glimpse into a woman’s everyday reality, even if the collection is a work of fiction. The crimes committed against the women in its pages are numerous, sometimes explosive, and other times subtle. That is, until they begin to glow and burn like a meteor entering the atmosphere.
“I was a creature so small, trapped in some crevice of an indifferent universe.”
Unraveling the dark side of fashion, portrayals of women and sexual violence in television, societal expectations to be thin, post-partum depression, and even Girl Scouts, this collection of stories is unlike anything I've read before. With an entire chapter dedicated to brief but startling reimaginings of an entire season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, you will find yourself both deeply disturbed and mesmerized by the places these stories take you. Pressure builds as you move from chapter to chapter and scene to scene, with the only release coming with the last page. Every chapter is a microcosm in the collective, like the saying goes, “Sometimes you have to stand back to appreciate a piece of art.” Such is true of this hauntingly beautiful collection of feminist short stories.
“When you think about it, stories have this way of running together like raindrops in a pond. Each is borne from the clouds separate, but once they have come together, there is no way to tell them apart.”
Machado’s writing possesses brilliant poetical elements. The stories are all rhythmic, and the paragraphs and dialogue seem to hum, growing louder and louder with each turn of the page. If you are a fan of lyrical writing, clashes of fantasy and harsh realities, as well as fierce feminism, then this is the book for you. Elegant, sophisticated, and unprecedented, Her Body will pull you in. And possibly never let you out again.
“What is worse: being locked outside of your own mind, or being locked inside of it?”
0 Comments.