DISCLAIMER : The following Book is for 18+ - I do not recommend this book for anyone younger than 18.
Pages: 309
Published: 2005
Date Finished: 26th February
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Our unnamed narrator takes her readers through an unusual resolution of lost love-six months after parting from her girlfriend Colette, she's still in pain. So she allows herself one hundred and twenty-one days to recover, while at the same time undertaking a journey into the Marquis de Sade's One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom. Thus does our narrator catalogue her fall from the intense emotion of young innocent love to despairing bitter debauchery, and at the same time exposes Sade's role in her own modern life. This novel is not solely an edgy, explicit tale, nor is it merely a sour-sweet love story. This gripping novel breaks all boundaries and knows few confines.
A fascinating examination of lust and sadism, with a modern and original style, from an exciting new literary writer. – Good Reads Synopsis
Review: [ A Total Mind-Fuck]
Some facets of the novel were complex and provoking. There were a lot of soul searching questions and issues that were controversial to read. Many times I put the book aside to ask myself how I felt about the situation and was reminded several times of experiences I had gone through myself, and those people closest to me have suffered. Something that began as interesting bored me easily and I found myself suffocating.
I had little time for the narrator, yet spent the majority of the novel being dragged under her self-loathing, suicidal, frustrating ramblings, that half the time made no sense to me and added nothing to the growth of the character. That is what I disliked most about 121 Days of Urban Sodom, the total lack of journey. Each day is tormenting to read and while I understand the context of the story and the role of the victim and how life destroying abuse can be, I didn’t see the need to spend over 300 pages explaining it.
Topics such as BDSM, rape, abuse, murder amongst a lot of grotesque but confronting issues were addressed throughout the novel as we read along her journey with Marquis De Sade and his book 12O Days of urban sodom. Even with the morbid curiosity that is part of my personal reading preference I was disturbed and often repulsed enough to put the book aside for days as she explained the happenings of the novel and her reactions to it.
I didn’t like Jacqueline’s style of writing. I liked the language she used and some descriptive passages really aroused me both mentally and physically, but the structure of the novel and the confusing nature of which she chose to explore it gave me constant headaches as I tried desperately to understand what was happening and to who.
I wanted to love this novel. It looked deliciously promising when I picked it up- and maybe it’s my mood that ruined the majority of the novel, but from the points that I noted it isn’t a book I am likely to recommend to my family and would only recommend it to those familiar with De Sade and those with a morbid curiosity whom despite my review will still pick it up.
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