A 45-46 years old with the fears, inability to communicate her wants and needs, and unfortunately also the behaviour of a young adult. This may be alright, cool even, in Hollywood but is a big NO-NO in my books!

Sorry folks!

Thank you NetGalley and Cannongate for the opportunity to review All Fours.

I read this while away on a weekend break thinking that this would make for a wonderful holiday rate. Unfortunately July hasn't managed to hit the mark for me.

The main voice felt incredibly unfinished and unpolished for me. Our unnamed "semi-famous artist" felt incredibly one dimensional with no real sympathy built. The book felt built around the trope of miscommunication, without any explicit miscommunication. The idea that our narrator values her and her husbands lack of communication as a selling point and a positive aspect of the marriage feels completely out of touch with reality.

The narrator paid someone $20,000 to decorate a motel room, and somehow nobody seems to stop this happening.

While I love seeing frank, open discussions of the ways things like menopause impacts women, and the sections were our narrator talked to other women about their relationships, sexuality etc was great: a broad spectrum was shown. Having more older, queer protagonists is much needed. However this was not enough to rescue from the idiotic choices the narrator made.

If this hadn't been a graciously given ARC I would have DNF'd it.

Ambigous, intriguing and funny: a well plotted story about recreating an identity and running away from you life.
Loved the storytelling and July is well plotted and fascinating.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

You know when you finish reading a book and just have to pause and take it all in – but in the very best way? All Fours by the enigmatic Miranda July made me do exactly that.

Our (unnamed) narrator is an artist (of unspecified work and medium) with a small level of fame, is married to Harris and has a child, Sam. She has also hit a moment of reflection and crisis in her life, largely due to the peri-menopause. Something that happens to women in their late 40s to varying degrees as a pre-curser to the menopause, but sometimes with just as brutal consequences as the full menopause.

All Fours is actually the second book I’ve recently read where the lead character is navigating peri-menopause – My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes also looks at this topic, although they couldn’t be more different reads. Which actually is a great way to sum up peri-menopause, it’s never the same for two women.

Our narrator is having a creative block so decides to drive cross-country from LA to New York, where she can meet up with friends. The long drive will give her time to think and reevaluate her life. She hits the road, ends up in a motel 20 mins drive away and basically stays there.

This is for a few reasons but the main one being that she randomly meets a younger man, Davey and he quickly becomes her obsession. Their relationship is very nuanced and it’s not a one way street on her part either. It’s explored in such a tender, exciting and unexpected way, it really has you hooked.

Her thought process is conveyed through her chats with her patient friend, Jordi and her husband, Harrison. While her decision might not make sense to you, she so eloquently describes why she’s doing them, you are 100% along for the ride.

The writing is the hero of All Fours. Miranda July’s phrasing is just so brilliant, emotion laced with humour and poignant insights. Absolutely character rather than plot driven, All Fours was such a fresh, engaging read. A blend of funny, disgusting, erotic, poignant and raw, Miranda July is all about delving into the small cracks of human connection. She writes like no other and I’m so here for it. Loved All Fours!

All Fours by Miranda July is absolutely belting and a must-read for every single woman/femme over 40 that is questioning their identity and life choices. In fact, you don't have to be over 40 for this book to resonate on so many levels. Miranda July is straight into my favourite authors list due to her truthful narrative, athenticity, integrity, honesty and humour, oh my word, the humour is bloody glorious!

Imagine telling everyone in your world that you are going to go on an immense cross-country road-trip, leaving your family behind, and than bunker down incognito in a tiny little motel where your life takes a completely different trajectory than you could have ever imagined. Spicy, insightful and so very funny, an absolute screamer on so many levels

Thank you to Netgalley, Canongate and Miranda July for this fantastic ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

Clever, insane and glorious, this is the exploration of self, family and mid-life women we’ve all been waiting for.

Miranda July’s nameless narrator has all the emotions and no clue what to do with them.

The result is an intense, messy and sexy account of what happens if you dare.

Wonderful book, should be on prescription.

this felt like a fever dream in the best possible way.

All Fours by Miranda July is an erotic, raw and brutally honest depiction of aging, both in mind and body. July’s narrator interrogates her changing body through the manipulation of the strict constitutions of marriage, traditional family boundaries and (queer, white, American) womanhood.

I particularly enjoyed July’s exploration of obsession. the narrator’s minor celebrity status provides a unique angle on infatuation and touches on what happens when a fan’s infatuation is reciprocated. the narrator’s intense, yet restrained, relationship with a younger man is a whirlwind that consumes the first half of the novel. it is all encompassing for the narrator, yet evolves into a direction that I couldn’t have predicted.

I’m half the narrator’s age and haven’t experienced half the things she has, but I felt like I totally got her. it made me anxious to see her give in to the bizarrest of whims, yet by the end of each escapade or moment of madness her actions felt justified and I was on her side.

never have I read a novel that’s swept me along like All Fours. I’ve not had a lot of time to read recently, but this was so easy to dip in and out of, to pick up and instantly become immersed. July’s writing is beautifully fluid, at times deeply emotional, and often with a sense of humour. I’ve not read many other books that feature non binary characters either, so the narrator’s child, Sam, was a nice element!

I don’t think this book is for everyone (I think that any book targeted at everyone probably isn’t worth reading), but I’d urge everyone to pick it up and go with it - if this book is for you, it’ll be hugely rewarding. I would highly recommend to fans of Chris Kraus, Sheila Heti, Rachel Yoder and Lisa Taddeo.

All Fours is out 16th May. thank you to @netgalley and @canongatebooks for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Miranda July book and I was engrossed from the first line. The blurb sold a very different book and should include content warnings because it's not going to be for everyone. It's a raw, real, human story. I will be thinking of this story for a long time after finishing it.

Thank you to Canongate + NetGalley for the ARC! All Fours is out now! #AllFours #NetGalley

I feel like I have read so many books about women in their twenties going through it that I was so ready to read about a woman in her forties going through it. What a treat this is!

Twenty-odd minutes into a road trip from California to New York, our unnamed narrator pulls into a gas station and just, spends the next 2 weeks at a motel nearby. She lies to her husband and kid about where she is and the only person who knows is her best friend. Futilely hoping that she might get inspiration for her next work project, she embarks on a different, much weirder project instead.

This is so messy and so sexy. There is a frank discussion between the narrator and her friends about being perimenopausal and how that has affected each of them individually. It’s a look at the different ways a family can be, how a family can change. And there are some totally absurd moments in here. One so wild it made me bring my hand to my chest like a distressed maiden in ye olden days.

Loved loved loved this. Cannot wait to go back and read Miranda July’s previous books. Definitely one for the Melissa Broder fans.

I loved this so much that I immediately went out and bought the hardback so I can keep it on my shelf. It's such a joy to read a book focusing on a woman in her forties that has so much wit and yet so much emotional impact. I was already a fan of Miranda July but this is by far her best work yet.

Beautifully written, insanely clever and incredibly funny. It has been a very long time since a book touched me so deeply.

I found this a sassy, sexy and raw read - not my usual choice but admire the perspective taken. Niche but well written


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

I really liked this book. The unnamed narrator is a 45 year old perimenopausal woman with a plan to drive from California to New York, but her trip takes an.unexpected turn. The writing style is fresh, and there's a lot to learn through the conversations with old and new friends and the new experiences that she seizes. I'm in this demographic and I identified with some of the feelings and enjoyed the idea of opening yourself with all the possibilities that are out there. Recommended.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“…like Humpty Dumpty or a lesser egg.”
 
In the excellent All Fours (@canongatebooks - UK release 16th May, by Miranda July (@mirandajuly) the unnamed narrator, an artist in her mid-forties, has a transactional, if supportive, marriage that she feels is constantly on the brink of becoming more intimate. It‘s been years since she was a fresh new name and we get the sense that she hasn’t created a stir for a while, in fact her latest big payout was for a fragment of her work being used in an advertisement. 
 
Stung by the suggestion that she’s become too passive she decides to prove a point by driving from LA to New York for a meeting with a big name. When she pulls over for a stop she finds herself reluctant to continue her journey. She doesn’t feel much like going home, either. So far, so Doc Hollywood/Cars - big city protagonist gets diverted and realises the true meaning of life, end credits.  But this is Miranda July, who likes to subvert our expectations (and pretty much everything else) and will always turn away from the obvious options. The stop-over is barely fifteen minutes from her home, she can see landmarks she passes taking her child to school.

This impasse in her life, is it artistic, is it spiritual, is it emotional, is it sexual? Or is it, as a friend suggests, the menopause? 
 
Fertility issues and frank sexual matters, while seriously impactful on the characters, are handled with empathy and humour. July does a wonderful job of bringing all kinds of intimacy alive on the page, and that includes sex: All Fours is effortlessly sexy - that is, it doesn’t have three pages of fully-mapped groping in each chapter, instead the sex is vividly conjured in short sentences, often only a few words, which capture superbly the powerful intimacy of a mutual connection, be the characters exchanging a caress, a kiss, or something more earthy.

I’m a *massive* fan of July’s work and with this hugely enjoyable novel she reaches deep and brings some rich perspectives on sexuality, aging, and making the best life for yourself. It is funny, compassionate, hopeful, and has a wonderfully mutinous tone.

A sort-of-famous 40-something artist is meant to be taking a road trip to New York, but turns off the road after twenty minutes and instead spends weeks in a nearby motel, renovating her room and diving into an emotional crisis that she will emerge from slowly, then all at once. I didn't know what to expect from this book, but it absolutely floored me - the deeply funny, eccentric narrator's voice at first made me think this would be lighthearted, but like 'Sorrow and Bliss', another book that made me laugh and cry, it goes somewhere much deeper, exploring maternal trauma and slow healing that happens so thoughtfully that I didn't spot it until it felt absolutely true. It's a meditation on middle age, motherhood, artistic ambitions, marriage and monogamy that will offer something to everyone, if you're able to lose yourself in the voice. Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a review copy!

Explores the conflict and absurdity of being a woman when society thinks you should have everything figured out. Of balancing the roles of mother and wife with work and self identity, all through the instability of menopause. It celebrates a return to playfulness and the freedom of making unconventional decisions and following the experience. Honest and uncompromising, this is a brilliantly absurd and often hilarious portrayal of a woman taking herself apart to rediscover herself anew. One to read with your best friend and scream together about the fuckwittery of life.

This was a difficult one for me to get into and was very nearly a DNF. The narrator, a multi-creative in her mid-40s with a husband and child and a successful career, was very difficult for me to relate to or even to want to relate to from the start. It could be funny at times, but mostly I felt I was getting a glimpse into a narcissitic and highly sexed mind that was just not interesting to me. As a woman nearing this time of life myself I appreciate the themes of independence and self-actualization that underly the narrator's actions but the way it was delivered was alienating and unappealing for me.

I haven't read the first novel by Miranda July, but now I absolutely have to. This, their second novel, is a real triumph: thought-provoking, brilliantly written and intelligently constructed, it provides a real burst of inspiration, and more than that, a close affinity with the protagonist. It's a meditation on sex, monogamy, art, hope, ageing (and I was going to say 'womanhood', but really, I think, humanity). The brilliantly clever use of humour reveals this writer to be more than adept. Please write more, Miranda July. Excellent. Highly, highly recommended. My grateful thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC.

A woman in her 40s going through a crisis period, upending her life and questioning it's direction is a good starting point. But, in the finishing, this surprising novel is exciting, funny, and explicitly sexualising.

I did wonder at one point should it be so explicit, did the book need to be so shamelessly sexually exploitative, but then if not, the whole essence of the novel is lost. It is after all about female desire.

Not only it is bold but, so wonderfully well written.

My thanks go to NetGalley and the publishers Canongate for an advanced copy of this book for my honest review.

Miranda July has always been one of my favorite writers, but this book seemed particularly different from the others, or maybe that's just because years have passed since the last one. The story alternates between funny moments and others where it also annoyed me, so I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but I find it extremely liberating that someone decided to describe perimenopause and sexual desires without innuendo, rather I would say with brutal honesty.

Miranda July é sempre stata una delle mie scrittrici preferite, ma questo libro mi é sembrato particolarmente diverso dagli altri, ma magari solo perché sono passati anni. La storia alterna momenti divertenti ad altri in cui mi ha dato anche fastidio, quindi non la consiglierei a tutti, ma trovo estremamente liberatorio che qualcuno abbia deciso di descrivere la perimenopausa ed i desideri sessuali senza allusioni, anzi direi piuttosto con brutale onestá.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.