I didn't even think about the rating for this book until the story took a bit wobbly turn towards the end and I immediately dropped a star from then four star rating in my head. Well, that wobbly turn and the speshul snowflake neon signs the author dragged out.

Other than that, I feel like I should've read this in school and get to write a proper essay on analysing all the things and comparing it to my own teen years which came a little after the 91-92 when this is set. And of course comparing this book to the brilliant My Mad Fat Diary (show since I've not read the book), but I'm sure others have done it already. Better than I could.

I've been told that the film adaptation is good too, but I'm not sure yet if I want to watch it.

If this book is a meal, I have no teeth.

If you like to read about idle people set around 1899 or if you'd like to write about them, then this is probably a book for you. Other than that, rather than any masterpiece of proto-feminism, it's a long novella about a woman realising she doesn't love her husband but can't leave him either because kids.

And the banning of it, says more about the time it was written and banned in than it says anything about the story.

Originally posted on Love in the Margins.

[Trigger warning: Incest.]

When I was fifteen I read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho simply because I found out it had been banned somewhere in the world. I didn't particularly enjoy the book but neither did I see anything in it that warranted the banning. So, you can guess what happened when I found out that Amazon had banned a gay erotica about identical twins.