This is a feminist book. Feminist books come in many forms. In some, the heroines seem to suffer terribly from male oppression, depressing themselves and the readers with their whining about the plight of women, their difficult careers, and so on. And others simply tell the stories of women, their lives, the problems they have to deal with every day, and that is how they scream louder than any whining about the problems that exist in modern society. This book is, for the most part, in the second category. Although it is not without its kinks either, but more about those later.
Dawn O'Porter is a broadcaster and print journalist who lives in London with her husband Chris, cat Lilu and dog Potato. She has made thirteen documentaries about all sorts of things, including polygamy, childbirth, geishas, body image, breast cancer and even the movie DIRTY DANCING.
Before us are the stories of three women. They all live in London. And each of them is well done by the author. The narrative is conducted in first person, or rather from the first persons, that is, each heroine tells her story and, in my opinion, the author has managed very well to convey the individuality of each heroine. Really see that these are different women, not one, trying on different roles. The reader is given the opportunity to "get into" the head of each heroine and find out "what women are silent about. Simply, without cuts, one-on-one.
Tara. Working single mother. 42 years old. Successful documentary producer for a major television company. The only woman on the team. Her story is the scariest. She became a "celebrity" by accident, caught on video by some young man at the very moment she was doing some not-so-decent thing in a public place. The video went viral. It's not hard to imagine what happened next. Job loss, threats on the Internet, terrible depression. Life literally fell apart. And let's not forget that she has a daughter who is supposed to go to school, whose teachers must have seen the video, and her classmates have parents who saw it, too. It's also not clear how to explain all this to the parents. In one week life was turned upside down, everything became shaky and unstable. Honestly, my heart was bleeding as I read it. I now look at all these Internet stories and their characters with great suspicion, trying to determine what their characters deserve more - sympathy, or censure.
Stella. Her story is scary, too. The story of a person who was not very optimistic before, and under the pressure of the problems of life, she turned into some kind of a terrible bitch, envious and furious at the sight of other people's happiness. Oozing anger and venom that poisons her own life. A classic example of a man driving himself into a hopeless gloom of depression, constantly picking at old wounds and exacerbating his psychological problems. It would seem very easy to take a strong dislike to this heroine, but her story prevents you from doing so. And even though Stella did unsightly things and shat on the other two characters in the book (indirectly), somehow I can't help condemning her, given the situation she finds herself in. She's really pathetic and understandable.
Cam. A popular blogger whose courageous articles are of universal interest, controversy, resonance and concern to society. For me, the character is the most controversial. Perhaps the only one I could not feel for her. May be it is because the values she promotes are a little bit alien to me, though I understand them, and maybe the author really managed to portray this character worse than the other two.
And, thanks to the author, the reader is alternately immersed in the life of each of the heroines. He sees the same that they see, reads their thoughts, solves (or at least tries to) their problems, finds out how they feel. And this is a very strong gimmick of the author, to present the story in this way. The book raises a lot of the problems of modern society. It is difficult, perhaps, to find those problems that the author has not touched. These are the problems of working single mothers, and bullying on the Internet, and free relationships, and loneliness, and friendship, and ... and ... and. There's a long list to go over.
Now let's talk about the kinks. Perhaps the author somewhat exaggerated the image of the men in Tara's situation, because her colleagues behaved frankly like outright cattle during puberty. Sure, television and competition and all that, but an English gentleman acting like that? Well, I don't know. It's more like a special kind of pressure. In general, the situation as a whole is a little too tragic, as it seemed to me, there's a slight, barely perceptible overkill in it.
Also, the end of the story is a little too cheerful. Yeah. It smacks of body positivity, whatever that word means. You know, it's like in fairy tales. At first it was brutal, and then, in the last two or three chapters and the epilogue, everything changes dramatically for the better, and dramatically and instantly. That's not how it works in life. That's why I was left with a bad feeling and dissatisfaction that the author had turned a quality drama into a mediocre vaudeville.
And yet, even in spite of the messed up ending, the book got me through. It is written in a fairly light language, read quickly. The characters are prescribed and conveyed very realistically. The logic does not sag, and if it does, the stories of the heroines are so addictive that it is not particularly noticeable. And, most importantly, the heroines evoke emotions. Different ones. The whole spectrum of emotions, I would say. All in all, I recommend it. Nothing I can say about the male readers, but female readers will not leave indifferent book for sure. Some story will catch on. So I recommend it.
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