All Fours

Similar to reading Sedaris - I spent most of the time marvelling at July’s ability to write about weird, mundane human experiences in such a charming and compelling way.

One woman’s spiral into the loss of self and sexuality later on in life through a rambling self crisis. I’m giving it 2 stars because I finished it (book club strikes again) but it was not easy. This is a stream of consciousness. This is a woman’s spiral and every thought in the way. It’s honestly just a lot.

Audiobook is narrated by the author who is incredibly monotone. Discussed with my friend what the purpose of the book was, and decided it was an inner monologue from a woman going through somewhat of a midlife crisis. She feels that she is nearing the end of her sexual life and struggles with it. A very very sexual book that is in no ways sexy.

No question that girl can write, and think. Made me lolz. But I’d hate to be her friend and she’d probably hate to be mine. Is she neurotic or a sex addict? Not sure but I felt really sad at the end.

I was looking for an elevated beach read and I got an elevated beach read.

unpredictable until it became all too predictable.

“Nobody knows what's going on. We are thrown across our lives by winds that started blowing millions of years ago.”

Love her writing, appreciated where she was going, did not enjoy the journey of getting there. As sexually graphic as the book was, with a descriptive focus on all imaginable types of bodily fluids, I didn’t experience the book as remotely sexy. Not that I needed it to be, but the countering effect was unsettling. The main affair was, to me, idiotically drawn out and obnoxious. There are ways to blow up your life and there are other ways to blow up your life that maybe don’t involve such extreme self absorption, delusion and stark abandonment of your family and child.

Typically I like flawed characters and enjoy not judging their flawed journeys. Maybe I would have rooted for her more if Miranda had spent some time making her (and Davey for that matter) a little more likable. Whatever sparks they were feeling, I as the reader could feel zero percent of them.

I often enjoyed her darker humor. She had brilliant insights. I can appreciate her courage and openness. Her neurotic and messy employment of that courage and openness was not something I was particularly inspired by and in fact often found childish and insufferable. Though, again, I can appreciate where she was going and that we are all a little fucked up.

This book was not for me. :)

It was cool, mid-life questions, community, feminist, kinda funny, lotsa sex. Stacks of it. A bit neurotic at times. I liked it ok.

miranda july the woman that you are.. i’m speeches

"I tried to remember how Pinocchio had become a real boy. It had something to do with being in a whale, maybe saving his father‘s life. I hadn’t done anything like that, but surely a woman was more complex than a puppet boy, and she might become herself not once and for all, but cyclically waxing, waning, sometimes disappearing altogether"

Perfect, PERFECT balance of funny, devastating, self-aware, self-loathing, giving/getting the benefit of the doubt, being insane and irrational, finding your way through with grace + thoughtfulness + care.

Dizzying. I was so enraptured, also the most painfully, blindingly aroused I've ever been from a book (I listened on audiobook, so not sure if this counts as 'reading' but I'm counting it. I think hearing July read it aloud made all the difference– her voices, intonation. So great.)

Raw, beautiful. A roller coaster ride.

I did not know what I was in for but I kind of liked it.

This novel certainly doesn't take no prisoners. It got guts to talk about mid-40 woman thoughts inside out even the (supposed) ugly, the grey, the soft and the weak, the plain and the beautiful. But that's judgemental. I should say instead that there is no hiding place, no dust under the carpet here, everything is shown in full garden spot light right in your face and I like it for that. Not easy reading at times. Not sure I "liked" that woman but it's not important, really.

I also found it funny even in the most lonely moments of the main character I don't remember the name of, and it's probably because it's not mentioned (TBC!). There are very very beautiful moments between her and the others, especially the ones with her child Sam.

Whatever we fancy or experienced with others, in this book, the author achieved to make me enter in the intimacy of someone very different from me and I thank her (or they maybe? need to check that) for that.

Gently lowered the crashing plane onto a lake, no ripples, like a coordinated stunt. It felt like the book had ended about 100 pages from the actual end then out of nowhere, meaning arrived. Miranda is proving to be a tenacious writer.