Her Body and Other Parties (5 points)

    I have never read a book like this one. No matter how long this writing is, nothing will be able to articulate the ways which I love this book. It is odd, really, I picked out the book because I thought for some reason this was the book that inspired Jenifer's Body, a movie that came out 6 years before the book. It is also odd that I could stomach all of the sex. I have known myself to be asexual for some time, but I'm not sex-adverse, just uncomfortable. Despite this, I was completely enraptured by Carmen Manchado's writing. 

    Out of the lot of stories, I liked Inventory, The Husband Stitch, and (especially) Especially Heinous. The Husband Stitch felt like such a natural elaboration of what I can only assume to be the classic tale of the woman with a ribbon around her neck. I know the story from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but I can only assume that it is a popular tale because of how Mancahdo tells the story straight, this tine from the woman's perspective.

    Inventory (and Especially Heinous) would not be the same without the format. I especially loved how the actual horror of the story crept up on the reader, yet never taking all the attention. The narrator is first, the story second: a theme in all of the short stories. This one was the hardest for me to get though sex-wise, but also is the one that really confirmed for me that this was a special collection. 

    Especially Heinous is one of those stories that you want to read over and over again, to be able to fit together the pieces and pick up on new details and to tell others about so you can watch them do the same. That, for me, is the highest regard I can ever give a piece of media. SVU was a show that I delighted in only on days that I was sick from school, but was my favorite of all the FBI drama shows on the ION channel. When I began reading the synopses, the short stories shocked me for being so varied one being horrific, the next being tragic, the next being hilarious. Yet, the aspect that I think ties everything together is the sheer volume of characters all experiencing different supernatural occurrences. You never get a chance to rest, bouncing from one story to the other, anticipating the conclusion of most of the plot threads. 

    I knew that this was going to be long because I had a lot to say, but wow. I did still want to touch on the way Manchado used sexuality in her stories. It is hard to find examples like this novel that really talk about women being intrinsically tied to ther sexuality, not being something to be shunned, outside of academic textbooks. Sex is used as a narrative device just as strong as emotion, and as a way to connect with the narrators, and as allegories for agency, rape, love, and humanity all at the same time. As someone whose sex drive is basically negative, it is a really interesting how it is viewed in this novel as the basis for being human. I am going to buy this book physically the next time I go to a book store.