Hmm. Overall I am glad to own and have read this book - there is a massive bias in queer theory towards masculine expressions of identity, so I think it's really important that books on the subject of femme exist. However, I'm not just going to blindly adore it because I'm grateful for its attention to subject matter that I deem important and underrepresented; I was often bothered by the lack of criticism of any of the people discussed, or their ideas, and found the tone at times overwhelmingly gushing. Consistently excellent pictures, though.

I can't get over how awesome this is? Alison Bechdel called it 'a scathing and meticulously documented autobiographical triumph', which is VERY TRUE.

OH MY GOD

So compelling, disturbing, dominating. Amazing amazing. Today I am not feeling at all articulate so I'm going to do that thing where I say maybe I'll write a better entry later and then never do it.

Oh, my god. Obviously I have not read properly in ages - I was going to document the books I was reading for uni but then I never finished any - but this was EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO GET BACK IN. Fucking sublime. I need my own copy immediately. Mmmm.

Usually I hate reading books with 'international best seller' plastered all over the front (I know I'm a snob), but I just didn't care with this one. It is so beautiful, so cruel, so slow - you get to see every side of a moment with complete lucidity throughout. My only main gripe is that I think it was over-egging the pudding a bit to have the cannibal AND the castrate AND the communists - had the communists not been in it it still would have served as an ample reflection of the horrors of that kind of extremism. But, still, amazing amazing. So well-written. So affecting.

Especially amusing, but one I think I'll have a lot more to say about once I've started studying it.

Wowzers in my trousers, the writing style was fantastic. However, much of the four out of five is because of that; I was interested in the characters, particularly Estha, but I didn't really care for them much. This reminded me a lot of One Hundred Years of Solitude - somewhat cold, removed; a worthy observation of humanity but not entirely human itself.

MAGIC. LOVE. LOVE.

When I first read this, aged fifteen, I was really impressed, particularly by the oral rape scene in the second story, which rendered me speechless. However, I found little in it upon re-reading five years on. The only thing about this book that interests me is its grossness, and I could get that from several sources that wouldn't also subject me to a depressingly flat writing style.