A review by sindri_inn_arsaeli
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Did not finish book.

2.0

I was very excited about the concept of this book, but the execution became too dense for me to get through. I do enjoy poetry, and I have really enjoyed several novels told in verse, but this ended up not quite qualifying as poetry and not quite qualifying as prose. It ended up just being obtuse, rather than as direct as prose, or even as metaphoric as poetry. I was especially interested in hearing the "voice of the disease" as a narrator, but the only way I knew that I was supposed to hearing the disease was because those sections were in bold, and they were so overly "poetical" in language that the meaning seemed entirely lost. I have no idea what was happening or what was being said in any of those sections. To top it all off the story wasn't chronological, and the jumps from the present to Lia's childhood often caught me off guard. Finally, the nail in the coffin, for me, was the "sexual awakening" aspect of both mother and daughter being portrayed at such an exceptionally young age; 11 and 12. I have a great deal of trouble understanding this aspect, as my own 9 year old has shown zero interest in this so far, and being Ace myself, I have no idea when this actually happens to kids, but that seemed like really really young. Maybe the daughter was just suddenly aware of boys and her own body, which seems more reasonable, but Lia's story definitely felt headed in a more mature rated than I was physically comfortable with direction, which was when I really just backed away.

I'm sure there is a right reader for this story out there, but it certainly wasn't me.