All Fours is a book I didn’t know that I needed to read. It’s an ode to women and their midlife. Among so many good books about the rights and wrongs of women, most of them focus on younger protagonists, which is great but once crossing a certain age, we might find ourselves lacking the representation of this dreaded midlife. Miranda July brought it to the forefront with so much humor and many unexpected events. From the beginning we’re in for a ride of surprises, weird choices of the main character leading to bizarre, hilarious but deeply human situations and relationships full of desire. By the 1/3 of the book I felt like the crescendo has happened and I couldn’t imagine where the story can possibly go, which lead to some middle parts that I wasn’t invested in, but the last 1/3 really saved it and brought it together. I absolutely loved the focus on perimenopause and menopause and many female perspectives the book brought forward. It is ultimately a story of female experiences in the part of life that is made to be invisible and forgotten but is so pivotal.
It’s a hilarious and satisfying read that kept going places I didn’t expect with just a few hiccups that were forgivable by the end.

Thank you to Canongate and NetGalley for the eARC!

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

This is the road trip that never happened. It’s not what I expected but is a strangely compulsive read. Once I got going I couldn’t put it down. I found it a fascinating tale which, although not funny, has humour in it. I can’t categorise this book. I enjoyed the read but found it totally baffling at times.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #Canongate for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.
#AllFours

Bold, brave and brilliant.

A semi famous artist embarks on a journey driving from LA to NY, leaving her husband and child. Where she ends up isn’t where she (or I!) expected.

July considers a lot through her protagonist: what does it mean to be middle aged?
What does peri-menopause look like? What happens if we talk about? What about sex and desire? Marriage? Inter-generational trauma? Being an artist? When can you reinvent yourself? The impacts of a traumatic birth? Being a mother?

All Fours is a no holds barred tale, thoroughly enjoyable and deeply moving. I’ve already preordered a copy for a friend - grateful to see FMH represented in fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Based mainly on romance and women's themes, I found the adult fiction book quite refreshing. Miranda writting style it’s really good and kind. was funny was raw was relatable so I think it’s a book to many people will enjoy.

I was both horrified and entertained by this book.
Yes, it's a brilliant look at a perimenopausal woman coming into her power.
It's also a story of someone who abandons a marriage she is barely invested in without a second glance.
She throws away her family for a bizarre fantasy based around a pretty boy who works for Hertz.
It reminded me of the bit in Eyes Wide Shut, where Nicole Kidman talks about being willing to burn down her marriage for an affair with a young naval officer.
You can tell it's a fantasy, because there are no negative consequences for our protagonist.
Her young son isn't damaged.
Her husband moves on with grace.
I wouldn't recommend this as a manual to follow, that's for sure!
Real Life is messy, and there is fallout.

I have never read Miranda July before, so this came across as an astonishingly different, a surprise examination of the life of an middle aged artist, who leaves her home, intending to drive cross country from LA to New Yorm, leaving behind her child and husband. However, shortly after starting she instead settles for a ordinary motel, her trip becoming more of an interior shift and changes to come. This is strangely weird, humourous, a delight in being found, uncomfortable, balanced with the comic touches in the musings and thoughts, on theimpact of limitations, on art, what constitutes being free, marriage, motherhood, domesticity, romance, intimacy, obsessions, and big on being unashamedly truthful and on a ageing woman's desire and sex, which may not appeal to some readers.

This is a thought provoking and emotional read, touchingly profound, of heartbreak, sorrow, and loss, and a eye opening glimpse of sex and the middle aged woman, her changing physical body, vulnerabilities, and the fully lived life. This is not going to be to everyone's taste, but many readers looking for the odd, original, and different are likely to appreciate it. Recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

All Fours is raw, frank, and at times, uncomfortable reading. As a queer woman in my early 40s, the writing and storyline hit harder than maybe for other readers - I found myself caught in a spiral of anxiety at times, analysing my thoughts and behaviours - am I perimenopausal? Am I heading for sexual dysfunction? Do I need to ditch my partner for a doomed relationship with hip-hop dancer? But in a weird way, I appreciated the questions that arose. It made me realise how little we talk about perimenopause and it's genuinely prompted me to look into it more and to discuss it with my partner and friends.

I oscillated between enjoying the novel & July's often darkly humorous writing, infused with a liberating exploration of 40-something female sexuality, and cringing and feeling repulsed at some of the content. The narrator blowing £20k to remodel a hotel room like it's nothing, the hook-up with a much older woman (not the age difference, rather the way this event is described), the obsession the narrator develops with this average guy, and the way he's elevated to some kind of god-like status.

There is a lot of sexual content, which won't be for everyone. It's a sharp contrast to the way women's sexual desires are often portrayed in novels - chaste, sanitised, or merely alluded to.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Did not finish - This was very different to what I'd usually read & it just wasn't for me. Nothing wrong with it, just personal taste & I wasn't as interested as I'd like to be.

Sorry to say this was not for me. Just a few pages in the thought of 45 year olds regularly sending each other naked selfies gave me the first hint it was not going to be my kind of book. I struggled on to around 25% but still couldn't really find a story to get my teeth into so DNF.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

This was just not my cup of tea and I sadly ended up DNFing. It was funny at times, but I just struggled to get into it.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a copy of this ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

I was so excited to get this ARC and it did not disappoint. All fours is raw, funny, sexy and honest. From the very start I was excited and comforted by Miranda July's writing.

All Fours by Miranda July is a typically honest and quirky novel about being a woman and a wife and a mother. I think fans of Melissa Broder would enjoy this one.

Driving from LA to New York as a way of changing something fundamental about your personality doesn't really strike me as a thing, which is probably just as well since our narrator gets entirely derailed half an hour from home by a young man cleaning her windshield...and everything spirals from there.

I enjoy reading Miranda July for the sheer quirkiness of her ideas and her ability to craft smart and funny sentences that stop you in your tracks. I also read things labelled as fiction as...well, fiction. So I'm going to ignore the whole side conversation here and just say that this book won't be for everyone: (a) it's extremely horny and decidedly bi and (b) the narrator is a lot and makes extremely unwise decisions all the way through it.

I can't quite tell whether this is supposed to be a sincere tale of one woman's liberating journey to an open marriage and a celebration of mid-life female sexuality or whether we're supposed to see the narrator as willfully ridiculous and just laugh along at the sheer absurdity of the situations she gets herself into.

I'd argue that it doesn't really matter as long as the book is entertaining, and it is.
Will it stick with me as some of her short stories have? Probably not, but I did enjoy it.

As a perimenopausal person, I finished the book feeling glad that I'm content in my quiet life, but I'm sure there are people out there who'll relate to the drama of it all better than I could.
(Oh, and if you've ever had positional vertigo you'll appreciate the breakdown of the Eppley maneuver.)

Bit of a bizarre one, a quirky story with intriguing characters and a weird plot.
Definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea!!!!

Absolutely fantastic.
I loved both of Miranda July’s previous books and so was very excited and eager for this one.
It didn’t disappoint.
It’s almost exactly the kind of book I’d expect from July, but with enough surprises that it doesn’t feel worn out or rehashed.
I hate to use the word quirky but I guess it applies — maybe unique, and unforeseen, would be better, but either way the characters are all wonderfully intriguing and the story is beautiful and weird in all the best ways.
It won’t be for everyone but if you’ve enjoyed Miranda July’s previous work you’ll definitely love this. If you’ve never read July before try this if you like fiction with quirky characters in strange situations, odd family dynamics, women in crisis, with a healthy dose of sex too, all of it written in such beautiful, memorable and highlightable sentences that I’ve ended up marking up almost half the book!

I remember reading No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda and I was so in awe and transfixed by that collection that I knew I had to read this book. It made me feel immersed in the life's and and often relatable tribulations of the women throughout, .

I first encountered Ms July in her film Me and You and Everyone we Know. I knew immediately that she wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste but I was instantly intrigued. I’ve followed her career over the years, sometimes with joy, other times disappointment. This book sits somewhere in the middle. It’s very much written in her style, and I think might appeal to lovers of Melissa Broder. But I felt there were too many subplots, and so it all felt a little underdeveloped and underwhelming as a result.

Sorry to say but this book was not for me, the profound language that was being used I found distasteful. I do not feel it was used in the right context at all. I read 20% of the book and then just gave up.

I will rate it as 1 star only because I cannot give it zero.

It's been a long 9 years (!) waiting for Miranda July's second novel but wow, was it worth the wait. No one on earth has a brain quite like July's. Her books are magnetic, propulsive, funny and oh so strange. I hope it doesn't take her another 9 years to write a book!

I found this an extraordinarily difficult read. I would not think of myself as prudish but this was raunchy in (for me) a relentlessly distasteful way.

I did love the fact that we were immersed in the tropes of desire, sensuality, deceit...from a female morality and perspective but I could not summon any vestige of either interest or fascination.

A highly successful (middle aged) creative woman diverts from a coast to coast road trip to play out her fantasies in a small town half an hour from home. She has her motel room luxuriously re-designed (really?) perhaps to avoid thinking of it as a bordello.

Husband and son at home are the only real nod to convention and the remainder of the narrative is a challenge to the reader to drill into their curiosity about possibility, inner thoughts and actions of mid-life sexuality.

I did not really like or enjoy but I expect that transgressive boundary pushing will divide readers and create a fascinating exchange of views.

With thanks to #NetGalley and #Canongate Books for the opportunity to read and review