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Loading... The Bride Stripped Bareby Nikki Gemmell
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. this book makes you think about not keeping a diary ( )Unusual writing style but still a quick read... Brought up some interesting issues but still seemed like there was something missing. A fascinating, thought provoking and raw book that takes a look at one woman yet I think probably represents many women in the modern world. This is a quasi-diary of a woman who questions herself and her sexuality, wondering why it is that for her sex is more about pleasing her partner than gaining any physical pleasure herself, and if she can change this. She embarks on an affair that changes her life profoundly, not only in that it opens her up to thinking about sexual pleasure in a new way, but thinking about life and how she is living it. This book reminded me a lot of Josephine Hart's 'Damage'. Like that book 'The Bride Stripped Bare' is an exercise in dry, stripped prose used to describe something full and sensual. Also like 'Damage' I found that this is one of the few pieces of erotica in the English language that actually works because it is well written and explores the motivations of the characters, rather than just getting into the physicality of the act. When the author finally comes to write about the central characters sex with her lover, it is all the more powerful and arousing for knowing how this fits into her life and mental landscape. And like any great book, it leaves you asking questions of yourself after you have finished reading. I started it and quite seriously couldn't stop. I don't share quite the desires that the protagonist does but just enough of the comments hit closer to home than expected... I saw references to this book all over the place while in Australia and felt I had to read it and was really surprised by it. It is not the usual kind of book I would like but I thought it was well written. The relationships between the main characters are brilliantly described particularly that of the main character and her one and only female friend. Worth reading to see whether you think it is a healthy friendship or not, let alone for the account of her sexual awakening which is what the book is famous for. 0.054 seconds to build listing no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 000716226X, Hardcover)A woman disappears, leaving behind an incendiary diary chronicling a journey of sexual awakening. To all who knew her, she was the Good Wife: happy, devoted, content. But the diary reveals a secret self, one who's discovered that her new marriage contains mysteries of its own.Inspired by a manuscript written by an anonymous Elizabethan woman who dared to speak of what women truly desire, she tastes for the first time the intoxicating power of knowing what she wants and how to get it. The question is, How long can she sustain a perilous double life? In writing The Bride Stripped Bare, the author decided to remain anonymous so she would feel absolutely free to explore a woman's inner world. As she writes in her afterword, "That doesn't mean this book is a memoir; it's many things to me, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and fact, a quilt pieced together not only from my stories but those of my friends." Coolly impassioned, The Bride Stripped Bare tells startling truths about love and sex. It will make you question whether it is ever entirely possible to know another person. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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