Sophie Mackintosh

A Novel

Cursed Bread

Jessica Sennebogen

Nobody, at the beginning, believes they will debase themselves for love. Nobody believes in anything else but joy.

Perhaps you can walk a thing away, or walk yourself away, wear yourself into a slip of sinew.

But I am afraid of wearing out my memories like old clothes tried on too many times.

I've been looked at in pity and in fear and I've learned that the only way to really be seen is through desire. To be looked at and found whole. Found alive. Pease look at me. I promise you that I am here. 

The ending was good but majority of the book just didn’t stick with me. Put me in a bit of a reading slump & became a struggle to finish. I just wish there was a bit more of a focus on the strange & weird events happening around the town as opposed to the romance plot. 

hessensitive

this felt very raw and i devoured it in a day

Lili

I am such a sucker for this kind of millennial-authored, stream of consciousness, unlikeable/unreliable narrator, narcissistically sociopathic novel! Give me all the beautiful words, deep longing, and absolutely artful banality of mass murder. 🥖🗡️🥖

Amelia

Elodie and Eileen (Ottessa Moshfeigh’s Eileen) would be good friends.

Oscillating between erotic, edgy, and unhinged, this story feels like a fever dream. At times, the prose veers into a stream of consciousness type which seems meandering and unnecessary for the narrative. But the languid parts are offset by its grotesque and beautiful writing. Although I couldn’t care less about the erotic/sex scenes, as a character study, Elodie after all is a story of a sad and lonely housewife yearning for her husband’s attention—to be regarded, desired, and seen.

”Isn’t that what we debase ourselves for love, one moment of certainty in this strange and beautiful world.”

Overall, very interesting concept that got me hooked from the get-go but execution is sort of lukewarm. I wish the feeling from the last 50 pages is the same all throughout.

Elodie and Eileen (Ottessa Moshfeigh’s Eileen) would be good friends.

Oscillating between erotic, edgy, and unhinged, this story feels like a fever dream. At times, the prose veers into a stream of consciousness type which seems meandering and unnecessary for the narrative. But the languid parts are offset by its grotesque and beautiful writing. Although I couldn’t care less about the erotic/sex scenes, as a character study, Elodie after all is a story of a sad and lonely housewife yearning for her husband’s attention—to be regarded, desired, and seen.

”Isn’t that what we debase ourselves for love, one moment of certainty in this strange and beautiful world.”

Overall, very interesting concept that got me hooked from the get-go but execution is sort of lukewarm. I wish the feeling from the last 50 pages is the same all throughout.

Cursed Bread A Novel

Reviews

Highlights