Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

“You never live with a woman, you live inside her, I overheard my father say to my brother once.” Her Body and Other Parties is Carmen Maria Machado’s brilliant first book, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards. It’s a collection of dark beautiful sometimes supernatural stories about women. And if that alone that doesn’t get you, I don’t know what will. Machado’s prose is stunning and erotic, her themes sharp and femme, the style wildly different from one story to the next. In the hetero stories, I was felled by how limiting and cruel the world is to women. Machado nails it line after line: “Scoffing is the first mistake a woman can make.” “She’s like dough, how the give of it beneath kneading hands disguises its sturdiness, its potential.” “He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt.” I don’t usually read speculative fiction and so the potential of each story to veer off into scifi territory was a little startling. I got used to it, and more, I started looking forward to it. The first story in the book, “The Husband Stitch,” is a bang on introduction to Machado’s mash up brand of psychological and supernatural fiction. “Inventory” starts off as an inventory of lovers and veers into a story of a mysterious epidemic, the two themes of love and plague intertwined, and now that I think of it, isn’t one just a subset of the other? I found the story “Mothers” to be especially disturbing for its themes of bad motherhood and abuse - the latter describing a violent lesbian relationship. “Especially Heinous” takes 272 titles of Law and Order episodes in the SVU series and makes up plot summaries for each. I found this story the least compelling of the collection, its themes of violence and re-invention lost in the long and rambling structure. “Real Women Have Bodies” was one of my favourites - the story of a shop selling prom dresses amid another strange epidemic playing out a metaphor for the silencing of women. The writing at the beginning of this story was especially delicious. I would read catalogue after catalogue if Machado were writing the copy: “She looks like she’s battling a giant prom monster - all petticoat undersides and rhinestone tentacles.” The story “Eight Bites” is about one of the most destruction social conditions of femalehood - those prescribing body image and weight. “The Resident” is a foreboding story intertwining the group dynamics of an art residency and a children’s camp. And “Difficult at Parties” is about trauma, PTSD, and social anxiety with a underlayer of voyeurism. Machado is an assured storyteller, confident and knowing and piercing. I especially loved the sexiness and physicality of the stories. It was visceral and refreshing and unabashed: “I run slick.” But it’s her writing that takes the cake - it’s some of the best I’ve ever read and I would happily read anything else she takes on, no matter the genre or topic: “The smoke crawled out of her mouth one limb at a time; an animal.” Read Her Body and Other Parties. It’s a wild ride about the human female condition.

This collection of short stories heavily emphasizes the violence that we put on women’s bodies. Whether it be sexual violence, physical violence, violence put on us by society, or violence we put on ourselves. This entire collection is absolutely haunting in the best way possible. I won’t forget this collection, ever. And these are all so queer, and so feminist, and invoked so many emotions from me. Carmen Maria Machado is beyond words talented, and I feel so very blessed to even have been able to read this. I'm going to break down each short story with my thoughts, opinions, and individual star rating! ➽ THE HUSBAND STITCH - ★★★★★ This is my second time reading this, and it is just as powerful and hard hitting as it was the first time around. And I implore each and every one of you who is reading this review to do yourself a favor and read this short story. This story is very feminist and very sexually explicit, but so damn important. It's about the life of a woman, who gives everything to men and never is allowed to keep anything for herself. It's about life's expectations on women, and how society shapes the choices we do and do not have. It's about how, no matter what, giving everything will never be good enough as a woman. It's about enjoying and exploring your sexuality, yet trying to cope with the shame. It's about never fully being able to become the person you are, but becoming the person your husband and/or family require you to be. It's about having children, who will just repeat the same vicious and unfair cycle. This is my favorite short story of all time and it deserves all the stars that Goodreads and every other book rating site has to offer. ➽ INVENTORY - ★★★★ This is essentially an inventory list of all the sexual encounters this particular woman has had during her thirty years while her world escalates into chaos. I loved looking at this sexual exploration, journey, and acceptance. And it evoked such raw emotion from me. I just didn’t think it was as hard hitting as some of the others in the collection. Also, if you enjoyed this short story, please check out The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison! I honestly can’t recommend it enough, and both stories have a similar theme, feeling, and hauntingness to them. ➽ MOTHERS - ★★★ This is a very metaphorical story that starts out with a woman being given a baby by her female lover that they created unbeknownst to the narrator. And I use the word narrator very loosely, because this story is very unreliable. You will constantly be unsure of what is real and what is not, but you slowly get to see a story unfold. I also wholeheartedly believe that this story is very open for interpretation, and what I got from it could be, and probably is, something very different from what you were able to take from it. And that in and of itself is beyond words beautiful. ➽ ESPECIALLY HEINOUS - ★★ This is a retelling of each season and episode of Law & Order: SVU that dips into the realm of the paranormal, but because I have never seen that show (I know, I know) I don’t think I got that much enjoyment out of this one. I still thought it was so very smartly written, and it has that haunting feeling that I know associate with Carmen Maria Machado, but I just wasn’t as in love with this as I feel others will be. ➽ REAL WOMEN HAVE BODIES - ★★★★★ This story felt like a punch to the gut over and over and over. Words can be so powerful, and Carmen Maria Machado has perfected the craft of writing, I swear. Women in this world fade slowly and eventually become invisible. We get to see a dress shop, that puts youth and beautiful before all else, and a few of the workers are grasping to those values. Growing older, and feeling less valuable because of it, is a concept that many people in this world can’t deal with, without having to turn invisible. And I’m not going to lie to you and say that when I read that one of the characters of this book was twenty-nine that I didn’t try to suppress that visceral feeling that I don’t even have words for, but I wish so badly that I didn’t feel. ➽ EIGHT BITES - ★★★★★ First and foremost, this short story would be so very trigging for anyone who has battled any form of eating disorder before, so please use caution before reading this one. Food and body obsession is so very real, and people will go their entire lives never knowing peace with themselves because of it. This is a story about a woman who has struggled her entire life and has finally decided to get bariatric surgery. This story also heavily talks about how we pass these terrible feelings and values down to our daughters and other generations, over and over. ➽ THE RESIDENT - ★★★ Like most of the stories in this collection, this story felt really personal to read. Like, autobiographical personal. This is about a woman who goes up to the mountains, where she also spent some of her youth as a Girl Scout, to work on her novel among other artists. We slowly get to see the writer slowly comes undone by her past and her present, but also embraces and comes to terms with who she is and how she is. It’s a beautiful mixture that I think most humans will really resonate with. ➽ DIFFICULT AT PARTIES - ★★★★ This was probably the most raw feeling story for me, and it really left me feeling empty. This is about a woman dealing, coping, and trying to heal with the aftermath of a sexual assault. Between others trying to help her, to hoping her assailant is found, and trying to find some sort of peace within herself, she is using pornography as a healing mechanism. Again, this is going to really be hard for a lot of people to read, but it’s also going to hit home for so many readers that need stories like this. I really loved this collection, and I gave Her Body and Other Parties 4 stars overall, because out of a possible 40 stars (5 stars possible for each of the 8 stories) this collection accumulated 31 stars (77%). Please pick this up, this is such an important book for everyone to read, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties” is as eerie as it is vibrant. This collection of eight stories centers around the lives of women and the way that they engage with sexuality, queerness, and oppression. The first story of the collection, “The Husband Stitch”, is a new, uncanny twist on the classic story “The Green Ribbon”, only in Machado’s version all women have ribbons. Her character refuses to explain the ribbon to her husband, explaining multiple times that “I’m not hiding it. It’s just not yours”. Using the lives and circumstances of her characters to comment on our cultural moment Machado is unafraid to let them be human – to let them have sex and fantasies and insecurities and flaws, to make mistakes and not be ridiculed for what they desire. In “Especially Heinous”, a short story inspired by “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”, Machado stacks little blurbs on top of each other which effectively spans a city while remaining contained and intimate. It is an intensely effective way of pulling the reader into the familial and personal issue that Benson and Stabler find themselves facing. We see this throughout the stories as Machado uses classic horror craft moves to rope the reader in through her impressive, lyrical use of language and subtle perversion of the norm. She doesn’t fall into the same pitfalls of many horror writers in that it doesn’t take her long to dive into the thick of things. While King and his work tend to drag a bit in getting to the up close, interesting, and icky, Her Body does not have this issue. Carmen Maria Machado is an incredibly smart and talented writer, as this collection of short stories clearly and commendably presents. This debut will leave you on the edge of your seat and hungry for more.

Her Body and Other Parties has gotten rave reviews from major critics all over the country, and it’s a National Book Award finalist. Here’s what you need to know before you jump on the bandwagon. It’s a collection of eight previously released short stories by Carmen Maria Machado. Its genre is kinda hard to pin down. I’ve seen it labeled a bunch of different ways: science fiction (there’s some dystopia in there), fantasy, literary fiction, horror, feminist, magical realism, surrealism, and weird fiction. I don’t think putting this book into a defined genre is very helpful for potential buyers, though. The stories experiment too much with form and style to really fit in anywhere. The short stories are “about” different stuff – they are all independent of one another – but the overall theme is that women, especially queer women, deal with some scary crap: violation of bodily integrity, sudden violence from those they trust, society’s attitude towards sexual violence, judgment of body image, judgment of sexual desire and history. The stories in the book examine typically overlooked female anxieties and critique societal standards and mores. Sometimes at a subconscious level. What does that mean? It means the stories are weird. With the exception of “The Husband Stitch,” I didn’t like it. The author cleverly experiments with formal storytelling structure, but the stories themselves generally felt soulless, like they were just intellectual exercises. Sometimes they read more like ideas than fully fleshed-out narratives, where the author presented a central metaphor, said “Ta Da!” and that was it. I didn’t feel anything except occasional bafflement. This is all, of course, a matter of personal taste. Machado clearly has a way with words. Most critics seem to enjoy the intellectual exercises and clear mastery of language shown by the author. I get the appeal; it’s just not for me. Other readers may find that they DO respond on an emotional level to the stories in this book. I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying it out. I do want to warn potential purchasers with limited funds that it MIGHT not be to their taste, as it was not to mine.

This short-story collection is one that all men should read. Actually, everybody would benefit from this collection, but especially men. Carmen Maria Machado’s expertly crafted metaphors speak volumes about female objectification in America. For any men who doubt the existence of male privilege, check out this collection! “The Husband Stitch” was my favorite story in the collection, and it packs one heck of a punch! (If you don’t know what the husband stitch is, you should Google it.) I was also quite surprised with how much I liked the “Especially Heinous” story since I’ve never seen a single episode of SVU, and the story is, essentially, structured as “Law & Order: SVU” episode summaries. “Real Women Have Bodies” is another masterpiece in this collection, and the attention that is placed on women’s bodies horrifies me. As a writer, I often try including powerful messages in my writing, so this collection was a perfect fit.

"I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them." This anthology isn't so much a collection of stories as it is a collection of experiences. Carmen Maria Machado writes beautifully; her voice is so incredibly unique, and no matter the content of the tale, she transports you right into the scene - for better or for worse. I'll do my best to give you my thoughts on each story, but at the end of the day, this is the sort of collection that I highly recommend you simply pick up for yourself. → The Husband Stitch ★★★★★ ← The anthology opens with a peculiar retelling of a classic horror legend: the woman with the ribbon around her throat, if you're familiar. The narrator carries us through her life: through meeting her significant other, wedding him, giving birth, the woes and beauties of motherhood, and more. She explores the paradox of being a woman who is proud of embracing her sexuality, while still, at times, noting the shame that society places upon her for it. She portrays the struggle of motherhood, and trying to do one's best despite all of the many obstacles that may cross a mother's path. Most of all, she explores feminism, and the fact that a woman, no matter how much she loves her partner or her child(ren), remains her own property at the end of the day. When a woman allows another human being to claim "ownership" of her, she loses herself. "Why do you want to hide it from me?" "I'm not hiding it. It just isn't yours." → Inventory ★★★★☆ ← While the first story is metaphorical, the second story is literally an "inventory", or a history, of the narrator's sexual partners and relationships. This entry to the collection is incredibly explicit, but woven into the stories, we learn of a world coming to a halt, and an apocalyptic reality setting into place thanks to an unstoppable disease. Machado builds up a lovely but inescapable sense of impending dread. → Mothers ★★★☆☆ ← The third entry begins with our narrator being handed a baby created by herself and her former female lover, and frankly, beyond this point, the rest of the story is a combination of beautiful, poetic narrative, and absolute chaos in the form of one of the most genuinely unreliable narrators I've ever read. If you enjoy unreliable narration and being left to piece things together for yourself, this will be right up your alley, but it was just a little too blurry and grey of an ending for my taste. One thing I will give Machado the utmost credit for in this story, though, is the incredible way she writes an abusive relationship. There were so many lines that were brutally familiar, but so cathartic, because they felt so raw and genuinely. "There was no way for me to tell her that we are so close, we are so close, please don't do this now, we are so close." → Especially Heinous ★★☆☆☆ ← This was my least favorite entry in the collection, though that doesn't mean it was bad. This one details an alternate universe of Law & Order: SVU in which there are ghosts of dead prostitutes with bells for eyes, doppelgangers dead-set on ruining lives, affairs, lost memories, and a character falling somewhere between mentally unwell and possessed. It follows several "seasons", with each "episode"'s synopsis ranging from a sentence to a paragraph. It was actually an incredibly unique idea, and I loved the metaphors being presented, but it overstayed its welcome and I found myself drudging through the last several pages. → Real Women Have Bodies ★★★★☆ ← Out of all of the stories, this was the toughest for me to rate, because I felt like it could be interpreted so many different ways, and I found myself second-guessing what it meant to me. Our narrator, a dress shop employee, lives in a world where women keep disappearing. They don't vanish into thin air; instead, they simply wake up one day to find their bodies fading, until they become translucent, and then are gone for good. At first, I believed it to be a commentary on society's expectations of women in general, but at one point, the story explains that women are fading younger and younger, and suddenly, I was reading a story about a world in which women lose their value as they lose their youth, and their worth is "lost" earlier with each passing generation. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? "Soon, I'll be nothing more, too. None of us will make it to the end." → Eight Bites ★★★★★ ← As someone who has struggled with disordered eating, I have vowed to always be honest in my reviews, but to be especially candid when it comes to ED rep, because it so easily goes awry. Let me preface this first, though, by saying that I have never seen a representation of an eating disorder that is as raw, and authentic, and flawless as what I read in this short story. I felt like I was gasping for air at times. The story follows a woman who, after years of struggling with her weight, decides to have gastric surgery to assist her weight loss. She comes from a line of women who are "too large", and even reminisces on her mother's disordered habits from her youth, though she doesn't seem to grasp how her self-loathing has alienated her own overweight daughter, too. What follows her surgery is brutal, and familiar, and heartbreaking, and so cathartic. ""You are unwanted," I say." → Difficult At Parties ★★★★☆ ← Machado rounds out the ending of the book with a story about a woman who has suffered sexual assault and is trying to find her place in the world again with her new traumas. She wades through the police search for her attacker, as well as desperate attempts to become intimate with her lover once more, and ends up seeking comfort in adult films. This is a bizarre, tough read, but it's important, and like every other story in this collection, it painted a scene that served as a reminder of just how brutal life can be for women in this world. → final thoughts & rating ★★★★☆ ← If I average everything up, I only actually gave this collection 3.88/5 stars, but overall, it felt like a 4- or even 4.5-star read. It is unapologetically feminist, queer, candid, and authentic. It is brutal at times, cathartic at others, and most of all, it is important. Be aware that it comes with nearly every trigger warning I can think of, but do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.

Rated 2 of 5 stars Carmen Maria Machado’s first short story collection does not do it for me. I found the stories to be a bit on the rambling aimlessly, trying to be artistic side. The stories consisted of women who are discovering their bodies, finding love within self and how sex or their vision of sex is distorted by their own personal demons. Here’s a brief rundown by each story: The Husband Stitch – This was a clever, Edgar Allen Poe-esque story about a woman who has a mysterious bow around her neck and doesn’t or won’t explain the origin or reason for it. Other women in society have it in different locations, fingers, ankles, etc. This woman is married, has a child and a seemingly perfect marriage filled with wonderful, fulfilling sex except that the secret of her bow and why her husband can’t touch it starts to deteriorate the marriage. In a last ditch effort and after her son is grown, she allows her husband to undo the bow and he finds out everything he needs to know. Inventory – I thoroughly enjoyed this story for its interesting writing. After an epidemic sickness hits the nation, a woman tells her story in fragments that align with who she meets and sleeps with. Through these relationships you start gathering what is happening in the world and how bad things are truly getting. This was my favorite story in the book for its clever storytelling. Mothers – I enjoyed this story for its complexity yet I still don’t know what the ending actually meant. I had a lot of questions as to what was real and what wasn’t. The story follows a woman who is just given a baby by her ex-mate. As she tries to raise the newborn, she gets overwhelmed and while looking back on her own relationships, she finds her way to her ex-girlfriends place and is confronted by a strange scene or imagining? Not quite sure. Especially Heinous – This story is taken from different scenes as if from a show of Law & Order: SVU. Since the show is one of my favorites, I felt this story lacking and incredibly too weird for me to get into. It had promising moments but then others that made absolutely no sense. Anyway, two detectives are working a case and have doppelgangers that want their life and dead girls are helping solve their own cases through one of the detectives….yeah, all of the place, I know. Can you imagine how I felt reading an entire story like that? Real Women Have Bodies – This story was very strange. While it had some definite bright spots in its storytelling, I don’t think the concept was strong enough or interesting enough. The story follows a clothing store clerk who lives in a time where women could literally fade into a mist via some sickness. So everyone is scared of the “vanishing women” sickness. The clerk meets another woman and through their relationship she sees that vanishing women are still around in everything they do but they can’t see them. This realization makes her go slightly mad and she fears for herself and her girlfriend what will happen to them. Eight Bites – This story of a woman who is infatuated with her weight and wants to look and be skinny. She has three sisters that completed bariatric surgery and are slim and even though they seem miserable, the look is worth it. Their mother, also thin, spews this thought process of 8 bites of food is all you need to stay slim. This has haunted all the girls for their lifetimes. Now as adults they have to defeat their own inner demons in order to truly find happiness with themselves. This story was told in a unique way and I enjoyed it for the most part. The Resident – The story of a nameless woman who is stuck within her own head after being left in the woods. From that point in her childhood, she has been inside her own head. I’m not sure what to think of this story although it had a creepy factor that I wish was explored. I felt like I was left hanging on what is really going on with the woman and why certain facts stuck out to her as life changing. Difficult at Parties – A woman who has been through some tragedy (which is never explained) is having mental problems that make her hear voices and have nightmares. Her mate tries to help her through it but she seems very aloof and internal without telling anyone, even the reader, what is actually going on with her. I felt like I could have liked this more if there were links to things made. Overall, I think the writers style is not one I particularly enjoy. She likes to be randomly poetic but then the story suffers from lack of real description of emotions. I could not rate this story high as the majority of the stories I did not enjoy reading and the ones I did enjoy were not stories I love, just like. I would not recommend this book unless you like obscure stories that leave you hanging.

This book wasn't what I was expecting when I bought it - normally Gender and Women's Studies classes don't focus on fiction. (So yes, I bought this for class that finished a few months ago, so please forgive me if I don't do this book justice.) It referenced a lot of pop culture that I wasn't familiar with (law and order: svu, a few movies/stories from the 1990s, various folklore, and others that I can't remember at the moment), so until I went to discussion boards in the class, I had no idea it was referencing these things. It felt very much like its own piece of art. The best way I can describe this book is gothic horror spread into several different short stories. None of the stories intertwine, but perhaps they build-up over the course of the book. It left me wondering "Why?" the whole time.

Great writing as it provokes you to think and create an alternate voice in your head which is constantly interpreting what the author is talking and what they mean to say.

this collection of short stories were really entertaining! i like all of them, but my favorite was the first!

Llegó en perfecto estado; todas las historias cortas son muy distintas de lo "normal", algunas son difíciles de digerir, pero vale la pena leer y experimentarlas todas.

First story is quite good, but rest of them are obscure to understand because they are full of metaphor about women sex.

Really enjoyable read, short stories perfect for holiday. Expected it to be a little creepier but it was actually at points quite sweet