Year 5, week 8: Her Body and Other Parties

This week's book:
Her Body and Other Parties
By Carmen Maria Machado

This book was for a Buddy Read, and I would have never heard of this book without this Buddy Read. The book is a collection of short stories by one author. The stories are all structured differently. Some I liked, while others I didn't love much. Since the stories don't go together, the only way I can review the book is to break down the book story by story. I probably will not go deep into each story because I don't want to ruin the plots. 

"The Husband Stitch"-- This story is an updated, very adult version of that story we all read in elementary school about the girl with the green ribbon. The whole story is full of urban legends and deals with how many men don't respect women's bodies or their wishes. I enjoyed this story.

"Inventory"-- This is the story of a woman chronically listing her sexual accounts during a pandemic. We don't learn much about the virus and this story is super short, but it's interesting.

"Mothers"-- This story is so flipping confusing and even the people in the chat couldn't agree with what it was about. I had to Google what the story meant, and it still didn't really answer my questions. 

"Especially Heinous"-- This story is essentially Law and Order SVU. The story is broken up into episodes and as an audiobook it was really confusing. It was probably one of my favorite of the stories in the whole book. The whole story is how the police officers are affected by the ones that they can't save. 

"Real Women Have Bodies"-- This story is about how women seem to try to make themselves smaller and smaller for the sake of fashion. In the story women start disappearing a little bit over time, until you can't see them anymore. I can't really go into too much without giving away the whole plot. 

"Eight Bites"-- A story about being overweight and eating disorders. Not scary, just depressing.

"The Resident"-- I actually have no idea about this story, other then there are major parts about being a girl scout and I found it funny because I literally just became my daughter's Daisy leader.

"Difficult At Parties"-- This story just seemed like a woman who has major mental health issues and seems hard to deal with. 

This whole novel is essentially about different ways that women are just not in control of their own bodies. Men or society or even their own mind is telling a woman how "wrong" and not in control they are. The author is a really good author and the stories are all written differently. The stories are written like art, not a story from point A to point B, but a story that takes you on a journey and really makes you think. 

I know there are people who really like this type of book but I just don't think this book was my cup of tea.