Month: March 2015

Review: An Untamed State



Review for “An Untamed State” by Roxane Gay

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This book really touched me. After finishing it I lay awake for several hours, just thinking about the raw reality of it over and over.. Very few books have the power to do that to me, and Roxane Gay is a sensational writer that captures your emotions with her first novel.

It goes without mentioning that this was not an easy read. It’s one of those books that you read for a while, take a breather, and, if you can stomach it, you dive in and take another plunge. I read this book in about four sittings, partly to get the suspense over with and partly to just end it–the terror, the waiting, the feeling like you are stuck in a cage and can’t breathe. You are fully there with Mirielle as she is kidnapped by armed men in on a visit to her native Port-au-Prince and held captive for thirteen days. What takes place over those thirteen days are some of the most terrifying experiences I’ve ever read. Mirielle is beaten, raped repeatedly, and tortured by her kidnappers after her wealthy father refuses to pay her ransom in some of the most cruelest ways imaginable. The disturbing content of this book could have easily allowed the author to venture down the “torture porn” route–lots of unnecessary, graphic details of violence, rape, and/or abuse that does nothing to develop character but only serves to shock an audience–but thankfully, Ms. Gay doesn’t go there. She does describe what happens to Mirielle in vivid detail at first but after that, manages to hint at specific incidents. I want to thank her for this, because without some kind of restraint on the part of the author I don’t think I would have been able to finish this book. 

Interspersed throughout Mirielle’s harrowing ordeal are flashbacks of Mirielle’s life with her family, her husband, and her career. At times the flashbacks were a wee bit long and unfocused, but, all in all, completely necessary for the story. Mirielle is a complex character, and the second half of the book deals with her life after the kidnapping. The writing here is a lot sharper, which I liked. Mirielle’s struggle to regain some semblance of normalcy is realistic and honest, and Gay doesn’t flinch from the jagged terrain of her recovery. Eventually one person is able to reach Mirielle, and it’s not who you expect. All in all, it added a very nice twist.

Roxane Gay dedicates his novel “to all women” and this dedication is fittingly appropriate, as this book lays bare the plight of women and their struggles. Not a pretty read, but a necessary one. Loved this!

Review: what purpose did i serve in your life



Review for “what purpose did i serve in your life” by Marie Calloway

Rating: No rating

I can’t unwrap my head around this one, other than to say that I wish I could unread this book. I wish I could delete it from my Kindle and act like the front cover and the title didn’t intrigue me to download it in the first place. But I can’t. Boo.

As a feminist I wanted to like this, as I’m always interested in feminism and sex-positive stories are always a plus for me. But there was none of that to be had here. This book is painful, twisted, and just…so…ugly. And it’s frustrating, because you can see Calloway’s point, buried somewhere in the muck of her detached realism and ridiculous online posturing. I don’t necessarily have a problem with her writing about casual sex with rapey losers she meets on the Internet, but why? Why is she doing this? She never really gives a context for anything, just a contrived, artsy, “I need to explore this” kind of attitude. It’s not even fulfilling sex, it’s cruel, painful sex with men she barely knows that humiliate and hurts her physically and make her feel subhuman. She clearly uses demeaning sexual encounters with less than stellar men to define her self-worth and cope with insecurities and past sexual abuse. She hints several times at having Daddy issues, but just as she gets to something interesting, the self dialogue stops and she abruptly stops the narrative. 

Her refusal to connect the dots between her emotional detachment and her sexual encounters seem to suggest that Calloway is merely interested in exposure of a prurient variety, i.e., pathological exhibitionism. In that vein, this book gives more than what you need. There are shots of Calloway nude, of her covered in bruises from a “bdsm” encounter, of her with a mouthful of semen, you get the picture. There is nothing inherently brave or noble she achieves in showing us this–it just makes her an attention whore, and an honest one at that. I want to send a memo to Miss Calloway that writing about sex in graphic terms (with photo proof to back it up) while being young and female isn’t provocative anymore, nor is it particularly interesting. At 200 pages, given the topic, this book still manages to drag, and some sections I skipped altogether. I wanted to put it down many times, and not because it shocked me, but because it bored the hell out of me.

This book did nothing for me at all. What would be shocking for me would be an emotionally healthy Marie, writing about sex in a way that reflected that mind state. But being normal doesn’t bring Internet fame these days, does it? Tsk, tsk…