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A review by erik_gamlem
Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter
4.0
I seriously feel physically ill after reading this. I'm stunned. The whole ride I didn't really want to turn the page, see what was around the corner. It was like this book I read when I was a child about Grover from Sesame Street. He kept worrying about the monster around every corner not wanting to get to the end. Of course when he gets to the end he's the monster he's afraid of the whole time. And that's exactly how I feel, like a monster at the end of a book I should have put down days ago and not finished. I knew it wasn't going to end well and it didn't. I knew it was going to hit close to home and it did. I knew that I wasn't going to feel all happy or even satisfied because I knew whatever the outcome it wasn't going to be tidy and it was just going to be a gross reflection on humanity.
I'm terrified now. There was something just a bit too authentic and reminiscent about Perry and Baby Girl. They're too much like people I knew growing up, feeling all to familiar in the dread of being a teenager. I'm terrified because I am set to teach these same types of people in the fall, knowing I know what they think I don't know about their lives. And sure, maybe this ended it more dramatic than others, but we all just got lucky, those of us that played with mortality, our own and others. When we wanted to feel something so bad we'd injure anyone around us, the result never being satisfying and always resulted in cruelty. So, sure it may not have been as catastrophic, but not being careful was kind of the point, and knowing that scares me the most.
I'm far too late to the Lindsay Hunter game and I am kicking myself somewhat. This is the writing I have been looking for my entire life, the awful, the terrifying, the sadness, the loneliness that's all too prevalent in the day to day but that we try to either hide or glorify in our fiction. This is what I want art to strive for, something true, even if it feels surreal. I want the disappointment, the cutting words of hatred, the cum down the legs, the black outs. Hunter knows where we are and she puts us where we belong, in the gutter. Thank you. I won't sleep well for weeks now.
I'm terrified now. There was something just a bit too authentic and reminiscent about Perry and Baby Girl. They're too much like people I knew growing up, feeling all to familiar in the dread of being a teenager. I'm terrified because I am set to teach these same types of people in the fall, knowing I know what they think I don't know about their lives. And sure, maybe this ended it more dramatic than others, but we all just got lucky, those of us that played with mortality, our own and others. When we wanted to feel something so bad we'd injure anyone around us, the result never being satisfying and always resulted in cruelty. So, sure it may not have been as catastrophic, but not being careful was kind of the point, and knowing that scares me the most.
I'm far too late to the Lindsay Hunter game and I am kicking myself somewhat. This is the writing I have been looking for my entire life, the awful, the terrifying, the sadness, the loneliness that's all too prevalent in the day to day but that we try to either hide or glorify in our fiction. This is what I want art to strive for, something true, even if it feels surreal. I want the disappointment, the cutting words of hatred, the cum down the legs, the black outs. Hunter knows where we are and she puts us where we belong, in the gutter. Thank you. I won't sleep well for weeks now.