Ms. Hen reviews Her Body and Other Parties

 

Her Body and Other Parties

Carmen Maria Machado

Graywolf Press

2017

Ms. Hen decided to read this because again, her imaginary friend whose name begins with an A recommended it to her. She thinks it's amazing that an algorithm should know her that well, but she doesn't know why she's amazed. She shouldn't be because the machines are watching us all the time, and they know everything we do.

This is a collection of short stories, and they are all dark and supernatural, and like fairy tales. The longest story in the collection, "Especially Heinous," is about the TV show LAW AND ORDER SVU, which Ms. Hen has always thought was disturbing. In this story, the main characters of the show are haunted by doppelgangers of themselves, and they live in a supernatural world. In the story "Real Women Have Bodies," women are disappearing and being sewn into evening gowns sold at a store in a mall. Ms. Hen's favorite story is "The Resident," which is about a woman who is a resident at an artist colony in a rural area where she used to go camping with the Girl Scouts when she was young. She is unstable, and has an episode in front of the other residents. Ms. Hen liked the setting because it reminded her of where she went to graduate school.

This collection reminded Ms. Hen of some other books she has read, "ST. LUCY'S HOME FOR GIRLS RAISED BY WOLVES," and "STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN," both are collections of short stories, mostly about women, with a lot of sex intertwined. This collection of short stories was very well received when it came out; it got rave reviews, and it was a National Book Award finalist.

Ms. Hen thinks it's curious that this book did so well. Not because it isn't good, but because it's so strange. Ms. Hen thinks the general public does not like books or other things that are this odd, but the general public always surprises her. Ms. Hen thinks this book did well because the stories are not afraid; they don't shy away from going to dark and disgusting places that some books fear.

Is it possible for a book to be afraid? Ms. Hen thinks so. Ms. Hen also thinks that some books should mind their own business. Either way, she enjoyed this, and it inspired her to write a story in this style, dark and psychological. Ms. Hen enjoys the morbid and sick side of life, and books like this satisfy her hunger.