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Member Reviews
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I went into this book not knowing what to expect, but I was very quickly blown away by its daring, ambition and unique voice.
The story charts the story between family members, especially mother and daughter, as they deal with their relationships to their bodies following a cancer diagnosis. The book beautifully captures the ways we turn to various coping strategies in times of fear- hiding, anger, and compulsive productivity.
The book unfurls like a scrapbook of sorts, with cut-up slips of paper, drawings and definitions appearing on the page to break it up. This never felt like it was trying too hard to me, but always felt like a natural addition to the narrative voice of the book- managing to capture something both playful and darkly unsaid.
Despite the book's length, I found it an incredibly speedy read due to its pace, and the breaking up of the page into various different parts, and greatly enjoyed the ride!
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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I have just finished reading “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies” and it has to rate as one of the most unique novels I have ever read. It tells the story of Lia who has been diagnosed with cancer and switches between finding out about her youth and the perspectives of the people closest to her. But the really unique aspect comes from the parts of the story told by the cancer and Lia’s body. It is so imaginative and poetic.
I found it a little difficult to get into because it switched around a lot between the more traditional ways of telling a story and this more unorthodox and lyrical style. For me, it meant that I didn’t feel the same emotional impact that others will have done. But that shouldn’t take away from the skill of the author, it’s more of a comment on me as a reader.
I would like to congratulate the author on a wonderful novel and one that I am sure will resonate with many people.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.
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I was sent this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.
I have just put down my Kindle and am lost for words. This book was so unique, powerful and emotional. I have never read a book that describes illness and death in such a way and I doubt if I ever will again.
Lia, her husband Harry and their daughter Iris are a perfect, happy family. Iris is starting secondary school and navigating friendship groups, finding her place in an hostile school yard, finding refuge at home. Everything is fine until the news of Lia's illness rocks them. Then everything changes.
As Lia's illness progresses we learn about her life, her relationship with her parents, her first true love, not from Lia, but from her disease. Lia's illness is given its own voice in the novel and becomes another character. It describes in horrifying detail the ravages it makes within her body, and it passes comments as it replays her memories. While at its hear there is malevolence, there are sometimes flashes of 'humanity' when for once it gives Lia a second's peace.
This is not a sickly sweet story, it is honest and raw and this is the reason why it affected me so emotionally. There are no sugar coated phrases, we see the characters in pain, in grief as each of them faces the future and Lia, in particular accepts her past, forgives herself and in turn is forgiven.
The book is not written in a wholly chronological way, we are taken backwards and forwards with the disease almost guiding us at it travels through Lia's body. At times the written is lyrical, at times like something from a medical textbook. But throughout it is interspersed with word patterns.
I loved this book, it broke me. It treated its subject matter with reverence and humour but never once did it allow me to abandon Lia. I was holding her hand throughout.
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Unique and poetically beautiful. An incredibly well-written book. This isn’t an easy read, but it’s an experience from start to finish. The body’s narrative was very cleverly done, although I found it quite difficult to follow in places as someone who doesn’t have much interest in biology.
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I understand where the format of this story comes from - the main character, Lia, is a creative type, who is currently working on a project based on lexical games, so the style the plot is delivered, in a certain way reflects that. I'm afraid, however, that it may not be quite clear for people with less experience with literature and its theory, making "Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies" a bit inaccessible.
The novel by Maddie Mortimer is a chronicle of dying from cancer, written from the perspectives of Lia and her changing mind, as well as her husband and her tween daughter. It showcases a terminal illness as an opportunity to revisit one's past, but it also examines the struggles and the reality of those who are accompanying the dying in their journey. These perspectives are valuable but in practice none of them seems to be given enough space to explore their complexities.
I appreciate the close-to-the-truth aspect of "Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies", with its misery, hopelessness, helplessness and conscious abstaining from the narrative of positivity, unexpected miracles and overall "upliftingness".
There was a potential for an interesting angle, sadly I feel it was wasted for sticking to a narrative concept that simply does not work.
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This is a tricky one to review as I found it wonderful in parts, and somewhat incomprehensible in others. It is the story of Lia, a wife, daughter and mother, whose cancer returns with real ferocity. It is also the story of her body and the cancer which have a voice as much as Lia does. The writing style is somewhat experimental in the voice of the body, with more traditional writing in the story in Lia’s own voice. There is real beauty in the story of Lia and her life, but the parts with the body narrating are less convincing, and not always easy to follow - although it was clear why the writing is different and disjointed, as a reader, it had less appeal.. There was something about this book that compelled me to read right to the end, but I finished it with mixed feelings - I have thought about it a lot since, so it got to me on some deeper level.
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"But it still nagged and troubled her. For if there was a possibility that she could help her body with her mind, there was the chance that her mind might have got her here in the first place. There were secrets that she still harboured after all. It was a surprise how physical they felt some days."
Trigger warning: death, cancer.
Maps of our spectacular bodies is a love letter to the body and the harsh inner voice. The prose is poetic and thoughtful, whilst sporadic in the way thoughts in a running mind can be. We follow the protagonist as her cancer returns for the last time and she navigates understanding what it means to be human and what kind of ending she should expect.
The book is poignant, it is honest and it is freeing. Mortimer's characters are upfront with their grief, realistic about their expectation and face their trauma head on. Bene Brown would be proud. Toxic positivity is over, I don't want to be told it's ok and things get better. This is the book for when things don't get better and it's ok. For when you need to take a minute to listen to your body, to your past and really hear yourself. Really forgive and move forward, however that looks for you.
"What do you think, I ask her, does death happen in the first or the third person? Are you stuck inside yourself feeling the immediate endingness of all things or do you hang above it, watching your body for a distance?"
I love the haphazard feel. I love the religious references and the acceptance. I have never journeyed with another through forgiveness and acceptance but this fiction took me on a journey on my own. I absolutely bawled on the train finishing this book and I regret nothing.
Thank you NetGalley for the Arc.