Reviews

Wow. I said this out loud multiple times during the few days it took to tear through this book. This novel is heart-wrenching, visceral, sardonic, monstrous, and gorgeous. We follow Cassie, a young woman born into a family whose matriarchy has a rare congenital condition that produces a gnarling knot on their stomachs. Through this deformity, we see the grisly parts of society rear their ugly heads in broad daylight. It is an astonishing feat for a book so surreal in nature to be so seamlessly connected to what AFAB people endure on a daily basis. We read about rivers of limbs, services that sell men chopped in half, and the ever-present blood red Meat Quarry. I am seriously astonished at how the author managed to weave together all the critiques that she did. I am in awe!!! Not to mention the stunningly unique format (reminds me of Machado's In The Dream House) and the prose that bordered on poetry at times. This book deserves all the praise it gets.

"An ache begins in my knot. The language of pain means nothing: Do I mean a cramp? Is it a fire? Is an ache a roar?" (124)

"'Is it ok if I touch you?' he asks.
I nod. I am ready to be touched now. I know they will always touch me" (178).

savaging's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I am in love with the oddities of this book. The form of the writing, the meat quarry, the knotted women, the gold coins. But in the end, that's what makes the narrative arc and tone so difficult for me. I want to explore this world, but that would provide moments of narrative self-forgetfulness, a glimpse of escape out of relentless and unending depression. And the point of the book seems to be, instead, relentless and unending depression.

"Some days, I can hear a parade in the distance," says the narrator. "there is joy out in the world, a celebration, confetti, cakes laughter, not for me."

Every page returns to this. No escape, no forgetting. It's a woe-is-me book, but I've defended the woe-is-me genre before. Woe is real and books should go there, right? If I'm impatient with it now, is that just because I'm too happy in my life to hold onto empathy?

Whatever the cause, this started to feel like lyrics for an emo band. Masterful sentences, but tragically self-absorbed. I don't say that as a critique of the author, because it truly does capture what depression feels like, where you want to escape out of self-absorption but can't. It just made it a joyless read for me.

cowgirlcrybaby's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

“I tend to my sadness like a wound each day.” WOW, this was stunning. A “Her Body and Other Parties”-esque tale of meat, grief, womanhood, and the mundanity of being alive. Equally as whimsical as it was horrific. Could not put down.

More...