Author: Radhika Sanghani
Publisher: Penguin
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
p11 "I don't always have seven drink a week..." 'drink' needs to be pluralized.
p11 "...seven drniks..." needs to be "...seven drinks..."
When I see a magnificent name like "Radhika Sanghani" on the cover of a novel, I want to find a book that is truly different, intriguing, informative, entrancing, even exotic, and I was unable to find any of that in this novel. Sanghani is a journalist with Britain's The Daily Telegraph, and this is her debut novel. I honestly expected to like it, but I didn't.
The naïve virgin route has been (if you'll forgive the potentially crude double-entendre) plowed so much that it's now a freeway, and this novel adds no more to it than the equivalent of yet another strip mall. In the stead of finding a unique boutique, or a great used book store, or some intriguing novelty shop in that mall, all that we get is the same fast-food place and big oil gas station charging inflated prices that we always find in every such mall. This saddened me.
It was hard to wade through this and even harder to take seriously. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the author hadn't evidently felt compelled to go into excruciating detail about common or garden things which she apparently doesn't realize are not actually mysteries to anyone with a functional brain (which I assume is her intended audience). I could only stand to read the first third of this novel, but in that third there were no surprises at all, and there was such brain-numbing detail that it often read like some sort of owner's manual rather than like an interesting, informative, or amusing novel. Reading The Vagina Monologues would serve you far better and be significantly more amusing.
I think that the author errored in rendering this as a bit of a joke, because the main character has some serious issues which oughtn't to be so cavalierly made light of. I also didn't get her obsession with "talking dirty". It felt like the author had suddenly learned that she could say "naughty words" and got carried away with it, without concerning herself about how the novel actually reads or what kind of a juvenile impression she's conveying of her main character, Ellie.
This was the first inkling I had that this novel was leaning far more towards slapstick and cheap laughs than ever it was interested in trying to usefully explore an important topic. It's always easier to go for the low-hanging fruit though, isn't it? It's like kicking someone in the balls rather than trying to out-wit them.
So this is the story of Ellie Kolstakis, a twenty-one-year-old virgin who has serious issues, and not a single one of them really has to do with her virginity (not at its roots, anyway). This story began rather confusingly with Ellie talking to a doctor. She was evidently registering for something, but after reading the whole chapter, I had no idea what that was about, what she was trying to do, what she wanted, why she was there, or why she was a complete pile of quivering jelly when it came to discussing her sexual health with a doctor. This wasn't the most auspicious start of a relationship with a novel (or with a novelist for that matter!).
There are so many - indeed, too many - novels about losing one's virginity (or failing to lose it), that it's a totally trite topic any more. The only reason I ventured into this particular one was that it was set in England, which makes a hugely pleasant change from the endless parade of books where the USA appears to be the only nation on the planet if not the entire planet itself. Also the author is clearly of a different ethnic group than my own (as well as a lot younger - she looks sooo young!) and you never know what you will learn when you head into terra incognita of this nature. I was excited and I was thinking, "What's to lose but a few hours, when there is potentially so much to gain?" That was how is started, anyway....
The first (and as it turned out, the only) joy, was that this novel is about a girl who isn't on the one hand a closet beauty queen whilst on the other promoting the patent fiction that she's a 'plain jane' who never gets a boyfriend. At least the character felt realistic in some regards, if a bit too much down on herself; then again, women who do look fine are down on themselves these days because of the absurd "standard" of "beauty" which is promoted in the media and foisted upon women by the male-dominated culture du jour (I use the term 'culture' loosely there).
I must confess that I can't help wondering when reading a novel like this, how much of it might be autobiographical to one extent or another. I'm not accusing the author of being a 'plain jane' by any means and it wouldn't matter if she were, but if this is even semi-autobiographical, it's much more of a horror story (that a woman should have to go through this) than ever it is a comedy. I couldn't forget that while reading, and this colored my perspective.
Having said that, and realizing that this novel might be (or parts of it might be) at least somewhat autobiographical, I have to say that I didn't find it very realistic or self-consistent. Perhaps it's not one person's autobiography, but a pastiche of several? Whatever it was, it didn't work.
The first problem is the fact that Ellie's medical record contains the word 'VIRGIN' (yes in block caps!). I find that really hard to believe. I guess it's possible; materially, it would be no different from indicating that she's sexually active, which could have possible medical ramifications, but if that were the case, then why not say "sexually inactive"? Why "VIRGIN"? But since we're never told exactly why she was ever at the doctor (trying to get on the pill maybe?), it's impossible to really determine how valid a comment that was. Besides, if this was her first visit, how on Earth did they know she was a virgin in the first place? This was one of several instances where the writing made no sense to me.
The second problem I had was that Ellie is telling this story in first person (which is entirely unrealistic as far as I'm concerned, but that's another issue and pet peeve of mine!), and she's telling it about herself. Given what we're expected to believe about Ellie: that she's a sheltered, withdrawn, naïve, sexually backward girl (which is a tough sell in this day and age, let's face it!), It took too much suspension of disbelief that she would ever tell such a graphic story about such a personal topic. It seemed completely out of character for her.
I found it particularly risible that at one point - in a novel which is entirely about sex - that she writes (employing block caps, yet!), "Why did EVERYTHING have to be about sex?" Right there was a major tipping point for me, and its stark hypocrisy is only exacerbated if you already have issues with a story, as I did here.
I have to ask, seriously, are college undergrads so immature that they play "Never Have I Ever"? Honestly? That just seemed beyond childish and written in there for no other reason than that the author could talk dirty some more. It did nothing to move the story along.
We also meet other characters acting out of character. For example at one point, she gets nekkid with fellow teen named James Martell, yet nothing happens. This is a guy whom she's not dating, has not dated, and with whom she's had no physical relationship (indeed, no relationship, period!), who basically manhandles her into a bedroom at a party, and feels her up; then it goes no further? Next he invites her over to his place one night when he's home alone, and they go the same route, get completely naked, hot, and bothered on the couch - and then he refuses to go further? It seemed completely unrealistic and consequently too absurd for words.
It was particularly incredible in that he'd already had his hand between her legs before that night, yet now he's all but shocked that she has pubic hair? How could he not know? Was he wearing gloves the first time? Maybe he had condoms on his fingers? I found several instances of writing this nature, as I already indicated. This can be described, borrowing a movie term, as poor continuity, and I chalked it up as yet more proof that going the Big Publishing™ route in no way guarantees you a decent editing job. You had better get it right yourself!
Yes, there are boys like James. Indeed, in some ways that particular scene could have been an encounter with me when I was that age, but that's not the character to whom we're introduced here. Martell has already shown himself to be the kind of guy who uses women, has no respect for them, and who considers them to be toys, playgrounds, or mere diversions, and yet when he's right there knocking on heaven's door he suddenly...shrinks away from it so to speak?
I didn't buy that. Yes there are guys like that but this guy was not drawn as one of them. If you're going to have a so-called hot-blooded guy get that far and then back down, you had better at least give him a solid grossed-out guy's "reason", like she has her period or something. That scene really dropped me out of suspension of disbelief, which made for three times in only twenty pages or so that this happened. That's never a good thing.
If Ellie had been portrayed as dumb, or somewhat backward or something, then this story would have at least seemed plausible, but she's not. She's shown (in the early pages) to be smart, personable, interesting, and worth knowing, which makes it so much harder for me to believe that she would first of all not have any guys interested in her - even for inappropriate reasons - and secondly, that she would be so ignorant about everything sexual, especially given that she has an outright pathological obsession with her virginity.
Ellie is not presented as an outcast. Far from it: she's presented to us as being (at least peripherally) in lots of cliques, and as having a diversity of friends and acquaintances, yet she's had no physical experience of any kind to speak of with any guy? No! It doesn't work! She's never read a book about it? She's never seen a movie or a documentary? She's never talked about it with anyone? She's never looked anything up online? It doesn't work. Not with the kind of woman we're expected at this point to accept that Ellie is, and especially not with her focused on it so acutely.
Her poor attitude is too much, as well. Given the kind of woman with which we're presented here, I really found it hard to believe that she would even be this down on herself. Self-deprecating, yes, but obsessed with getting laid and feeling so rejected that it dominates her entire every waking thought? Not plausible. If she actually had been like that, she'd be depressed and would have been seeing the doctor about that!
So it was at that very early point, only 20 or so pages in that I really started wondering if I could keep reading this without the author offering me a real incentive to keep going. In that regard, putting a novel out there is rather like a sexual encounter, isn't it; perhaps one that is between a guy who's only after one thing, and a girl who's a tease? How far can she keep leading him on and leaving him dissatisfied before he quits her altogether in frustration? The answer wasn't far in my case with this novel.
When you know the author, just as when you know your partner, teasing like that is a heck of lot of fun, but when it's someone new, it becomes a potential problem. That's exactly what's going on here, so the reader has to decide how long to wait. Just how much more time is it worth investing to find out whether this author will finally grab me by my interest or leave me blue-booked? Or should I just quit wasting time with this print-tease, and find a more satisfying partner? I had my answer about one third the way in.
Sadly, having impressed me earlier with what an intriguing (if sadly unhinged) woman she was, Ellie forced me to question that assessment after I read of her idiotic and irresponsible plan to go out and get laid - pretty much with any guy she could find. This is insanity, especially since she spends hours agonizing over what to wear, and spares not a single thought for contraception or disease! C'mon, this isn't the sixties any more (and the sixties never actually was the sixties with regard to disease-free wild sex: there's no such thing!).
That really took her out of my respect zone, especially when she declared that the reason she absolutely must lose her virginity is that even if she met the right guy he would run a mile if he learned that she was still a virgin. What? Excuse me, but WHAT? How can he even remotely be defined as 'the right guy' if that's true? This is simply bad writing - unless, of course you deliberately want to convey the idea that your main character is a complete ditz with nothing to recommend her.
Ellie is unshaven in her public region and at one point she decides this hair needs to go, but she describes it as "shaving [the] vagina". I seriously hope she isn't actually planning on doing that - it would lead to a lot of internal bleeding and possible infection. Shaving her pubic hair OTOH would be fine if she really must mold her Mons to men's insistence upon what a woman should be, instead of her own wishes and needs. So strike what I said about her being smart and worth knowing. She's juvenile and shallow. Here's a classic article on how women are enslaved to men's dictates about what's acceptable in a woman.
She declares that the conventional wisdom is that "...the au naturel vagina had only been acceptable in the seventies"! To whom exactly? By whose standards? At least she uses the correct French form of au naturelle, since vagina (French vagin) is - inexplicably! - masculine!)
It seems to me that what's acceptable is what a woman wants for herself, not something to which a male-dominated culture or society dictates that she must conform! Forcing women to further reduce themselves to the status of children, by removing all evidence of sexual maturity from their primary sex organ so that they can be owned and 'cared for' by perverse, selfish, and immature men doesn't strike me as very feminist.
It is her choice of course whether to depilate her Mons Veneris, but I think we need to keep in mind that this is largely an American obsession (like circumcision - unless we count areas where it's done for religious or health reasons) and it no longer is your choice if you're pressured to follow someone else's designs upon your body. The rest of the world largely couldn't care less what such "men" demand of "their" women and indeed would be foolish to do so. Keep in mind that contrary to popular misconception, men do indeed play with dolls: those dolls are women.
So the author goes into an unnecessarily detailed description of the shaving o' the Mons, but in front of the mirror the next morning, rather than complaining of 5:00 am shadow, Ellie declares herself thrilled at feeling like a "new woman". Perverse much, Ellie?
The only funny thing here was the time-line. The very reason she's shaving (so we're led to believe) is that she's supposed to be going out that night with a friend to get laid, but the night-out bizarrely never precipitates and instead we get a description of the next few days as Ellie bemoans the growing stubble and the pain from almost 'circumcising' herself with the razor. Frankly, I'm not sure I get how urinating causes pain in this instance, since the urethra is way below the clitoris, but let's just put that down to artistic license, shall we, and move on?!
Maybe I'd become so numbed at this point that I missed something, because they do go out several days later, but if that's the case and she wasn't going out that night, then what was with the urgent need to shave and otherwise depilate herself right there and then? Once again, the writing makes no sense.
Given how much research Ellie supposedly did for this activity, I found it incredible that she never read one thing about stubble or about alternatives to shaving. This illogical lack of logic and consistent lack of consistency in telling this tale was one of the things which marred it so badly for me. It made the entire story seem fictional in the worse possible sense of the word, and it also made Ellie once again look quite simply stupid, and incompetent. I found myself wondering if I was actually supposed to like this character, because I grew increasingly to dislike her with every page I turned.
So, as I mentioned above, at a bit over one third the way through this, I could not stand to read any more. There was nothing there. The story was not amusing, just tired. It was not new, just derivative, and it was not original, just uninventive, and uninspiring. The main character was decidedly boring in her blind obsession, and it was obvious right from the start that she would meet her knight in shining armor unexpectedly, so what's to look forward to?
How many times has this exact tale not been told? Not many. It's the equivalent of those nauseating American TV sit-coms which have the standard trope birthing scene, where one of the main characters is about to have a baby, and everything is panicked, and she experiences grossly exaggerated pain, and makes "hilarious" faces whilst giving birth, and the husband cannot cope at all, in any way, shape, or form, but in the end everyone is oh-so-happy with the adorable newborn babe. Those shams are all the same, all inanely slap-stick, all ridiculously cartoonish and absurdly exaggerated, and therefore neither interesting nor funny. And like this novel, they bring nothing new to the table.
Ironically, this novel was itself an unsatisfying first encounter: it was messy, painful at times, and in the end meaningless and made me wish I'd spent my time doing something else. The experience wasn't really like reading a novel at all. This could have been a texted "conversation", or a twittish tweet fest. Actually, it was more like sitting in a crowded bar and being forced, by proximity, to listen to a couple of clueless girls nattering on endlessly and mindlessly about their man-woes, all the time oblivious to the fact that they could actually do something about it if they got off their asses and put some actual thought into it. And like the conversation in a bar, there was hardly any descriptive prose here: no sense of surroundings, season, or context. I found that sad. It was all talk and no traction.
It felt like a phone-call from a friend who happens to call when you're in the middle of getting ready to leave for an important appointment. All you can contribute is the silent wish that they'd get to the point so you could hang up and move on. All it seemed to consist of was endless set-piece conversations, every one of which failed dismally the Bechdel-Wallace test.
Ellie is an undergrad in her last year of college for goodness sakes. Does she quite literally have nothing on her mind, no interest in her shallow life, but getting laid? What message will this send to any college guys who might read this? It will send the same woefully misguided message as your average porn "film": that all women think about is sex, and that every one of them really needs nothing more than to get laid asap. That's the real tragedy here - not Ellie's virginity.
While your mileage will undoubtedly differ from mine, this blog is ultimately about how well a tale is told, both technically and in spirit, and I cannot in good conscience recommend this one, which fails abysmally in both measures.
