Customer Reviews

Valencia

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book transports the reader into the San Francisco lesbian scene. Having lived on the east coast my whole life and being rather shy, i found myself living through her on her adventures with woman after woman.
It's a quick read, a no-brainer, but highly entertaining.
I'd recommend this book as a weekend fling!
=)

This book takes the time to remind you of all the feelings you have when you have a crush on the girl you're afraid to talk to, when you're in love, when you're falling out of love, and when you detest love. I loved the way it made me think of the relationships that I've had and the ones I want. Michelle Tea writes with such a pleasant tone that you don't want to put down the book, because you start to feel like you're living the crazy San Francisco girls life. It may not be the book if you're looking for a lot of insight, but it's a pleasurable read.

Michelle Tea's story is certainly interesting and unlike any I've ever read before. These girls say and do the things that we all sometimes think about doing if we had the guts to throw caution to the wind. I alternated between cheering the characters on, and thinking that they were stupid and shallow. The writing is fast-paced and difficult in spots with bizarre capitilization and sentence structure. This is worth reading, if you aren't picky about everything being believable.

This humorous and madcap story of one girl's life in San Francisco is perfect for those once into Judy Blume and now into riot grrls and Ani DiFranco. Taking place in one year, the narrator pursues her desires through a number of women in search of enduring love and great times. Tea also delivers a classic line: "Desire... is all about stink." It's a very visceral and madcap story that certainly is aimed at a narrow audience. I almost didn't finish it, but Tea's narrative did encourage me to follow to the end.

Michelle's book is indeed one that is hard to put down! I felt rebellious just taking breaks at work to try to finish it. And for a long while after, I sort-of looked at everything around me a little differently--like there was a story waiting to be told in every nook and cranny. Truly a gift.

This book is incredibly difficult to review, simply because it is both the best and worst piece of writing you are likely to read this year.

You desperately want to like this book because of it's innovatively and beautifully written prose and its blindingly obvious potential. However, in the end, the bad repetitive and completely dull elements of this story win out above the interesting writing and all else that this book may offer.

Like a dykey 'Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas', Tea's stream of consciousness narrative examines the underbelly of 20th century Lesbianism in San Fransisco. While this is a fascinating subject, Tea manages to inject the work with such unbearable repetition ('We were all on drugs', 'I was avoiding this girl', 'My green hair', 'This girl kissed me in the bathroom' etc etc) and works so hard to push this book to the very edge of the lesbian counterculture.

Was I meant to sympathise? Was I meant to care about this woman and her relationship/alcohol/drug issues? Probably not, but if I don't care about the subject of a book, I am unlikely to see it through to its conclusion to find out what happens. As many other reviewers have suggested, I couldn't help but wonder why this repetitive tale necessiated an entire book.

Nevertheless, I did stick with the mindless drug-hazed oblivion that was the conclusion, and came out none the wiser, but merely feeling as if Tea had played to a number of lesbian tropes and wasted my time on her drugs, mindless sex and green hair and latex gloves.

But nevertheless, beautiful prose never realised.

This book was first published in 2000, but the reason for this review is that it is soon to be released (in Australia), in paperback and with a new introduction by the author. In some ways, the intro is the best part, as Tea obviously has a longer perspective now. Maybe she has also grown a sense of humour about herself - the best part of the intro is when she takes a certain glee in the news of one of her hate objects in the book, after hearing a Tea poem about her, having 'kicked a bus shelter and broken her foot - because I was a small-hearted, bad person, I delighted in this'.
Unfortunately, there is not much of this duality or humour in the book itself. Tea took herself very seriously, playing the grunged-out lesbian role to the hilt and beyond. She seems to be under the impression that taking a lot of drugs, drinking too much, and having a lot of violent sex with girls is somehow revolutionary. To which the only response (from the perspective of 2008, at least) is: yeah, that's nice, girl, now get in the queue.
To tell the truth, the community she describes seems a rather unpleasant place: incredibly grotty, sexually aggressive to the point of being predatory, riddled with drugs (the bad kind, not the good kind), and built on self-righteous self-indulgence. And the gossip! These people gossip and bitch about each other, like, all the time! It is as if they combine the worst features of teenage girls and adolsecent boys. Tea: ever thought about not so much finding your inner child as finding your inner adult?
So is the book worthless? Actually, not at all. If you can get past Tea's innate self-destructiveness and obsession - her love of love, her desire for desire - there is a good literary sense here. She occasionally writes a killer line, a spot-on description. Having spent some time walking around San Francisco, I accepted the strong sense of place here (even if Tea's world is restricted to a couple of blocks).
But then, Valencia is not for me, middle-aged white guy that I am. So I will give this book to someone I know, someone young and on the verge of becoming exceptional. It might (or might not) mean the world to them.

the imaginative, lyrical and sensual motion in this "confessional" novel can only be attributed to a liver and lover. those who do not connect with this book in one way or another have not connected with much; the survival sensibility contained in this book transcends that contained in most. The raw lines, extracted involuntarily by a reader like me who was, prior to her reading, vying for something more tangible in books written by 20-something lesbians with something to say, emerge as an "every-woman's" inner-monologue, one that most might be afraid to admit to.

This book may not have been inspirational or life altering, but it was definately interesting. A quick read, and a glance at the restless punk rock, SF dyke scene. The characters are excessive but believeable, Michelle Tea does a good job of taking you there.

Halfway through "Valencia" I somehow misplaced it. I don't know where it went, but my read got totally interrupted. In a fit of "socialism" I hit the local library and grabbed their dog-eared copy. It was well used and slightly beat up, the corners chewed, pages sticky, with scribbly notes in the margin. Looked like every lesbian teenager from here to Venice had already had it in their sweaty palms. And who could blame them. It'd be like reading an anthem - like me twenty-five years ago reading Burroughs' "Junky" and taking notes.

I love Michelle Tea. Her poetic words flow, her images, tragic and beautiful. She is San Francisco - her Radar Reading Series rocks. And "Valencia" beautifully chronicles a time, a sense, a community, and a piece of SF history. It's a must read.