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A review by lezreadalot
Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks
3.0
The body is a great thing, Judy, a horrifying thing, a great and horrifying thing to be trapped in a body, anything can go haywire at any moment.
I spent a lot of time while reading this wondering if I'm the audience for this book, or if I'm too dumb for it. I did like certain aspects of it; a queer, mentally-ill woman spins through life and temp jobs and unrequited love in a drug-soaked haze. Deals a lot with addiction and drug-use. Some passages spoke about life and self-image and mental illness with pinpoint precision that I really liked. I'd be meandering along the book, not having much idea of what was happening because the passage of time and change of locations wasn't really noted, having to reread sentences multiple times, and then something really insightful would latch on to me, or I'd see myself in a sentence, or I'd find myself highlighting stuff like mad.
But the book in its totality didn't really click for me. A lot of references that I didn't get, things I had to stop and look up, something I didn't bother with. I can enjoy stream of consciousness (which I think this attempted to be at times, and it fits, because the protag was high most of the time) but the main character's narrative would take such huge leaps ans turns, it felt more nonsensical than anything else. Sometimes I'd go over a passage multiple times and just end up with... nothing. A lot of words, sure, but basically nothing.
(Again, it could just be that I'm stupid, or not fully the intended audience.)
Interesting, at the very least.
I spent a lot of time while reading this wondering if I'm the audience for this book, or if I'm too dumb for it. I did like certain aspects of it; a queer, mentally-ill woman spins through life and temp jobs and unrequited love in a drug-soaked haze. Deals a lot with addiction and drug-use. Some passages spoke about life and self-image and mental illness with pinpoint precision that I really liked. I'd be meandering along the book, not having much idea of what was happening because the passage of time and change of locations wasn't really noted, having to reread sentences multiple times, and then something really insightful would latch on to me, or I'd see myself in a sentence, or I'd find myself highlighting stuff like mad.
But the book in its totality didn't really click for me. A lot of references that I didn't get, things I had to stop and look up, something I didn't bother with. I can enjoy stream of consciousness (which I think this attempted to be at times, and it fits, because the protag was high most of the time) but the main character's narrative would take such huge leaps ans turns, it felt more nonsensical than anything else. Sometimes I'd go over a passage multiple times and just end up with... nothing. A lot of words, sure, but basically nothing.
(Again, it could just be that I'm stupid, or not fully the intended audience.)
Interesting, at the very least.