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A review by manikahemmerixh
Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
4.25
Enjoyment of this book is likely to depend a lot on the inner workings of the reader. Within a similar vein of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but so much better executed in my opinion. Acts of Desperation inserts the reader into the mind of a woman who believes that she wants love above all else, because if someone loves her then life can be simple. The things she hates about herself won't matter because it'll all be washed away. In love, she will learn who she is supposed to be.
She's not really a likeable character. She's a mess. She's self absorbed and hates herself at the same time. She is a proprietor of her own destruction, but she's also just a girl. And that's kind of the point and why you'll probably either (maybe painfully) enjoy or find this book incredibly bland/annoying. I'd consider this the type of art that is meant to be an exaggeration or magnification of the parts of ourselves that we consider "dirty" and hide, but that so many of us can relate to in some way. Our narrator has incredibly big feelings, or sometimes feels nothing at all, she's "inappropriate", and it's all laid out for the reader.
The ending I'm still ruminating on a bit. Snapshots into the "future" show us that our narrator seems to be in an in-between place of understanding the pain she caused to herself and others in her youth, but still struggling to free herself from those parts of herself. In the end she realizes that there could be more to her life than subjecting herself to the whims of men, but the sporadic chapters placed four years later suggest she still doesn't know what that new passion is.
"I went to the bathroom and stood in front of the sink and wept bitterly, immediately, without thought. I knew it was childish, behaving this way, but it was painful to be reminded so casually that everything I cared about was subject to the whims of others."
She's not really a likeable character. She's a mess. She's self absorbed and hates herself at the same time. She is a proprietor of her own destruction, but she's also just a girl. And that's kind of the point and why you'll probably either (maybe painfully) enjoy or find this book incredibly bland/annoying. I'd consider this the type of art that is meant to be an exaggeration or magnification of the parts of ourselves that we consider "dirty" and hide, but that so many of us can relate to in some way. Our narrator has incredibly big feelings, or sometimes feels nothing at all, she's "inappropriate", and it's all laid out for the reader.
"I went to the bathroom and stood in front of the sink and wept bitterly, immediately, without thought. I knew it was childish, behaving this way, but it was painful to be reminded so casually that everything I cared about was subject to the whims of others."