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Her Body and Other Parties

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Her Body and Other Parties

By: Carmen Maria Maria Machado
Narrated by: Amy Landon
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About this listen

In her provocative debut, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism.

Startling narratives map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited on their bodies, both in myth and in practice. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the mysterious green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague spreads across the earth. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery about a store's dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted house guest. Bodies become inconsequential, humans become monstrous, anger becomes erotic.

A dark, shimmering slice into womanhood, Her Body and Other Parties is wicked and exquisite.

©2017 Carmen Maria Machado (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories Marriage
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This book is creepy, sexy, sad and funny. The stories are varied and luciously written. Lovely contemporary gothic collection.

Absolutely everything I wanted

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The recording sounds clipped and is hard to follow at times but excellent short story writing

great writing

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My Body and other Parties is (for me) an unusual anthology and a choice I didn’t regret. This is modern writing, unpredictable and w a raw sensuality . There is an originality with unexpected plots and outcomes. I enjoyed most of the stories but all are worthwhile listening. I thought this was a new discovery, but my daughter had read this ages ago and the hard copy was on the shelf !
Narration was great but the individual titles aren’t listed in the contents and there was only minimal pause between stories allowing them to run confusingly into each other.

Unusual anthology

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I absolutely loved this.

These stories are dark and uncomfortable and beautiful on how ugly and honest and violent they are, despite the explicit implicitly of said violence upon women and femmes.

Machado's words smoulder and scream with dark magic and silence becoming deafening.

I wouldn't say these are easy or even pleasant stories to read. They definitely took some work from me. But they are phenemonal and powerful.

It's rare that I feel so immediately compelled to return to a collection of stories, but I really am eager to return to this.

Telling a story through 272 descriptions of increasingly unsettling and bizarre Law and Order: SVU episodes is one of the most inspired, original, and brilliant things I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I cannot believe how compelling it is!

Machado's words smoulder and scream with dark magic and silence becoming deafening

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I loved most of the stories but I hated "Especially Heinous". I find this with most short story collections, that there is one that I don’t think works. This problem is when the one you dislike goes on way too long. I get it as a concept but it felt like that one just wasn’t readable and I really chore to get through. I couldn’t skip because I would hate to say I read the book having missed out something.

Mostly loved

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