Wetlands

Wetlands by Charlotte Roche (Fourth Estate Ltd)
I have heard a lot about this book, so I was beyond excited when it arrived on my desk. A young German woman's debut – is it porn or feminist literature? Ooh, the pundits are all aquiver with either rage or excitement. I was a bit surprised that it had stayed on my desk while I was off ill... but hey, my luck!

Apparently, though – it had not stayed on my desk. Many Women24ers had tried to read it but failed to get past the first 10 pages. I took it home and got to page 17. My mom, on the other hand, got to page 83... she was most anxious, you see, not to be labelled a prude.

It's a book about Helen Memel, a rather unsympathetic heroine who delights in the shocking, whilst trying to get her divorced parents back together. It starts with her in a hospital bed, describing her cauliflower-like haemorrhoids while her doctor leaves her alone in a puddle of her own lanced anal boil juice. It continues in much the same vein.

My opinion? It's badly written, which means that the extreme sexual imagery is neither enticing or provocative... just blatant.

After 10 pages, you are not gripped enough to lose yourself in the full frontallness of it all, so continuing seems unnecessarily unappetising. And nothing makes a book suck worse than leaving its reader behind as a bystander.

I think Charlotte Roche is a bad, boring and selfish writer. But hey. Maybe she improves after 10 pages. You tell me.

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