A men-only charity dinner. A clutch of young waitresses.
The jokes are uncomfortable. The hands linger. The collars loosen.
Behind closed doors, the wine flows. The night is dark. The faces blur. The memories warp.
Behind closed doors, the money flows. But revenge is sweet and justice is a burning flame.
Behind closed doors, the blood flows…
Review
"These men tonight, they weren't sex. They were hands and faces and comments."
A compulsive tale of love and lust, brimming with secrets, silence and violence with a healthy dose of feminine rage. This book expertly shoves a crowbar through the locks of hidden parts of a misogynistic, selfish society: exploring how power, obsession and money can shape and infect our relationships, direct our lives or even make men think they’re entitled to hurt and kill to get what they want.
From the first few lines, I was besotted with Cass, seeing the weight of societal and traditional expectations being placed on her by simply existing around men, especially those considered powerful.
And then there’s her Mother Eve, slipping into another stage of womanhood and discovering what people really think of aging women.
"The thing is though ... the boys, the men, they're living it too, right? On the other side? But the numbers about how many of them are raping or assaulting or sending dick pics aren't so easy to find. How do we fix a problem when we're only looking at one half of it?"
Drifting between before and now, Cass and Eve show us themselves laid bare, experiencing the aftermath of a single party and every event that followed and looking back into their own memories to learn who they are and who they were. Then bringing in a deeply compelling perspective - you. Giving the reader their own role to play in the women’s stories, a major character in their life played by you; creating an uncomfortably voyeuristic but undeniable feeling. Moving in short bursts that at first was dizzying but then settled into a frenzied, fast pace - sometimes offering key details from only one perspective, or retrospectively, creating an interesting need for us to figure out what the truth is and pick apart just how one moment can be seen so differently depending on who you are. At times I felt like I was missing big things with the strange narration and the fact that simply so much happens but it definitely had something special.
I felt every story they told of growing up, the first catcalls, the sexism, the entitlement and aggression from boys, the feeling of fear around men old enough to be your grandfather, the crushing pressure to be perfect but never too perfect.
This was a masterfully written, powerhouse of a feminist novel — a call to arms for men to do better, women to stand together and for us as people to realise it’s not enough to just not be a bad guy.
- Bad Manners releases on March 27th with HarperNorth. I received a reviewers copy of this title.
- This title contains subjects including body image, sexual assault and sharing of private images.
Comments
Post a Comment