Her Body and Other Parties
Books | Fiction / Short Stories (single author)
4
(1.5K)
Carmen Maria Machado
Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction“[These stories] vibrate with originality, queerness, sensuality and the strange.”—Roxane Gay“In these formally brilliant and emotionally charged tales, Machado gives literal shape to women’s memories and hunger and desire. I couldn’t put it down.”—Karen RussellIn Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
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More Details:
Author
Carmen Maria Machado
Pages
248
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Published Date
2017-10-03
ISBN
1555979807 9781555979805
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"Carmen Maria Machado gives us 8 stories of women dealing with the realities of the violence done to their bodies. It’s horror on a psychological level. She writes in a way that makes you feel what they are feeling! (4.5 stars)"
Sandy Lopez
"Carmen Maria Machado has such a way with words - feminist, tragic and gothic is how I’d describe these stories. Some of these keep you thinking about them well after you finish reading this book."
Olivia Huie
"I enjoyed this book. The first two short stories were absolutely my favorite and I recommend this to anyone who wants a different genre queer book!"
Necalli
""What is worse: being locked outside of your own mind, or being locked inside of it?"<br/><br/>Her Body and Other Parties is a fascinating collection of 8 short stories from Carmen Maria Machado. Several of the stories fall under horror (some are more speculative), and there's such a great variety here. All of the stories were different, and all were entertaining. I loved the focus on queer characters, and I wish more books were like this. <br/><br/>My top 3 stories in this collection were Inventory, Especially Heinous, and Difficult at Parties. I rated all of the stories in this book between 3-5⭐. I loved the worlds that Carmen opens up in these stories. There is so much creativity here. Some of the stories went over my head, and I didn't completely understand them, but I still enjoyed the collection very much. These stories were intense and haunting, and I can't wait to read more from Carmen Maria Machado."
Emily
"Definitely a good weekend read, although i did make the mistake of reading it on vacation. NOT a vacation book lol. It is extremely raw and hard to read at times. One thing no one told me about the book was just how ominous the stories are. Each story provides a great amount of detail while also making a great amount of the story based on interpretation, which is very interesting. I firmly believe that everyone who read this book will walk away from it with an entirely unique experience"
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esperanza
"Great feminist gothic stories; made me tear up and feel nauseous in the best way possible"
Jess Ament
"Nothing wrong necessarily with the book just not my choice read. "
Trinity Moore
"Mind-bogglingly Boring<br/><br/>I've never read a book where the only reason I kept going was because I had the miniscule hope it would get better. It never did. While each story is better than the last they each start boring and stay boring. <br/><br/>One short story is just "The Girl with the Green Scarf" but edgy. Another is just poor man's SVU fanfiction. Those are the biggest offenders because it would be forgivable if they were entertaining but they aren't. <br/><br/>Every story tries to make a horror of some part of women's experience in some way. Which is and can be an interesting concept but they all miss the mark for me. Not even the sex scenes could keep my attention. They were just there and honestly I just kept hoping that the next page would be the last. <br/><br/>I will give the book and author one thing. They are very pretty stories. The prose and flow of each story is well crafted. And the author can make a very convincing "something is not right" atmosphere. And I think that's what makes it a little sad because I could see better stories in each one."
Glimmerbugz
"This collection of short stories was amazing and wormed it’s way into my psyche. Some of the narratives, how the characters feel, resonated with me and pulled out parts of myself I didn’t know existed. Machado has a talent for the uncomfortable, unsettling, and anxiety inducing. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, it’s a piece of art. "
Cheyenne Corty
"⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨"
Erika Lynn
