Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative and Disturbing - A Must-Read!, August 17, 2007
A gem, for any of you folks who haven't seen it on the Target shelves yet: Nikki Gemell's The Bride Stripped Bare.
Written in Lessons instead of chapters, the novel begins with, "Your husband doesn't know you're writing this. It's quite easy to write it under his nose. Just as easy, perhaps, as sleeping with other people. But no one will ever know who you are, or what you've done, for you've always been seen as the good wife." From there, Gemmell takes us on a journey through a woman's erotic and frightening self-discovery. The narrator moves from boring housewife to experimental secret-keeper upon the discovery of an Elizabethan manuscript that describes women's secret desires. Intrigued that another woman so far removed had felt the same urges and longings, the narrator careens through testing the limits of marriage, dragging the reader through the rabbit hole with her into a world where a bored, naive housewife quickly learns to weave lies and deceit to manipulate those around her.
Fans of poetry, you're in luck - the rich imagery and gorgeous use of language melts on your mental tongue as you read, and though many of the sentences are short, they're rich - I have to admit a tendency to blow through books and then have to go back to read for digestion. This novel, however, had me gasping with exhaustion at the end of every few chapters - it's gut wrenching, in a subversive, disquieting way. The second person voice "you" this, "you" that - the narrative voice intimately involves the reader, turns the reader into a shadowy accomplice during the length of the book. Does each of us have the capacity to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality, and are we willing to pay the price that comes with it?
The way Gemmell captures what a woman thinks when she's got the semi-ideal life but dark yearnings makes this one a must-read for anyone interested in the workings of the mind of a woman. Note that the Amazon reviews I've seen so far have hated the book - but I do believe they came from the wrong perspective. I don't believe it is intended as a heartbreaking take of a good wife; the sex scenes were not meant to throw the book into the 'erotica' cache of reading, and it is not intended to be a novel addressing what EVERY woman wants, desires, and is willing to do - it's more about the boundaries one woman chooses to cross, and what it does to her as a person. Whether you like or dislike the narrator is almost immaterial - the journey is the thing.
Caveat - sexually explicit, unapologetically erotic, and searing honesty characterize Gemmell's work in this one. While many women will report that they have had none of the darker wanderings of the mind that characterize the novel, from conversations with close friends and my own experiences, enough of us have to make this one a very worthwhile read. Highly recommended with maximum starrage - if you're not afraid to read a novel with a provocative cover that only hints at the turmoil and emotionally disturbing text, this one is a must-read. A must re-read. A must-share-with-my-best-friend-and-a-few-men-I-know read.
Gemmell is now on my list, and I'll have to go grab her other work - The Bride Stripped Bare is beyond fantastic - it's disturbingly real. Let me know what you think of it!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good book but not revelatory, April 26, 2004
This review is from: The Bride Stripped Bare: A Novel (Hardcover)
I have very mixed opinions about this book. As a story, I enjoyed it: the prose is often excellent, the voice and internal life of the heroine is well done. The framework of the story is intriguing and made me eager to finish it, although the ending isn't so much an ending as a stopping. Against that, there's a great deal of artificiality. The relentless use of the second person grates. The cardboard cut-out characters of the dull-as-dishwater husband and the impossibly perfect, hunky but virginal, paramour are unrealistic and lack life. But that should be OK, because this is a novel in form only. Actually, it's an exposition of women's attitudes to sex and their secret feelings and desires. The real purpose of the book is to lay out and discuss these hitherto unknown areas of human life. But it doesn't and this is where the book spectacularly fails. The sexual revelations aren't revelatory: who doesn't know nowadays that often marriages lose their sexual passion after a time, that many women don't enjoy performing oral sex or that someone can have a secret life that is at odds with their external persona? Women masturbate and enjoy it. Gasp! Couples can experiment to enhance their sex lives. No, really!? One of the most difficult aspects of the book is its claim to speak for all women, which is inaccurate and a little offensive. This self-important attitude is present on every page: the fact that it's dedicated to "every husband"; the continual use of the second person; the anonymity of the author (which actually seems to have more to do with marketing than any other consideration). The extreme inability to speak about sex that characterises the protagonist (and, by extension, the author) just doesn't describe most women I know. While many of the problems and concerns the book describes will I'm sure be familiar to female readers, it completely ignores the fact that this is well-trodden ground nowadays. There's been a continual conversation going on since the 60's about women's role in and marriage, their frustrations with men and society and the necessity of reshaping the lives of women to reflect their sexuality. None of this is evident in the book at all. The treatment of sex is very Cosmo and the fact that you can find a much more frank discussion of female sexuality on TV in the form of Sex And The City indicates that the book falls way short of its intentions. Surely literature should be more challenging and subversive than mainstream TV? I thought this may have been something to do with age, that the book is aimed at older women than my peers but knowing that Nikki Gemmell is only 36 makes this extremely perplexing. As I say, as a story about a woman and her particular marriage and her particular responses, this is a good book. And if it had been published in the 60's, 70's or even 80's then I can see how it could have been shocking and revelatory. But evn though many of the problems and concerns it treats with are real for many women, this book fails to encompass the real complexity of these issues in the modern world. It isn't frank enough. It tells you little you don't already know. It presents black and white, unsatisfying caricatures of the men involved, which mean that the issues aren't explored in sufficient depth and detail. Overall the book falls abysmally short of the sort of impact it's trying to have and which it rather smugly assumes it does have.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Striking and thoughtful, February 23, 2005
When I saw this book on the shelf of my local bookstore, I actually almost blushed. "Erotic" was the key descriptor in almost every review sited on the cover...and I am not normally a fan of erotica literature. But the story sounded just too seductive to pass up. It focuses on a newlywed woman who feels discontented with her new life. Her husband is very plain and business-like, the opposite of her. Despite their happy companionship, they are rarely intimate and she yearns for something more. After meeting a handsome stranger in a local cafe one day, her entire world changes. She comes alive, gets in touch with her sexuality - and the reader anxiously follows her awakening. It's exciting, graphic, and heartbreaking all at once. Her life is not an easy one, but what woman's is? I would highly recommend this book to anyone who's ever been in love, been in lust, or has dreamt about being in either sometime in their life.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
