📸Capturing female rage - Boy Parts: Book Review #5
“Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a mark?”
-Eliza Clark
Irina, a photographer with a twisted obsession for her subjects, spirals into a self-destructive journey of violence and crime when offered an exhibition at a fashionable gallery. Boy Parts by Eliza Clark is a dark comedy exploring sexuality and gender roles.
Through her reflections of the past, we learn about the effect of her paedophilic teacher’s actions on her mental health. In My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russel, the narrator desperately holds on to the false notion that what happened to her was not abuse but rather love, something she was a willing participant of even as a child, to give herself a sense of control in an otherwise horrific memory of being helpless and powerless. Similarly, Irina also downplays the effects of abuse as a coping mechanism to numb out the pain it causes.
“There’s a soft part of your brain. A place where you’re still just a child. Once someone’s poked the soft spot, the dent doesn’t go away. Like sticking your fingers in wet concrete.”
When her safety is compromised, she echoes the sentiments of women who have been conditioned by the society to victim-shame and blame themselves, "Was it my idea to have him hurt me, or did he just let me think it was?"
Irina mercilessly wields her conventional attractiveness and fleabag-like humour against everyone, not even sparing her best friend.
“She liked Harry Styles a few years ago, and now she likes that white-bread, absolute baguette of a lad from Call Me by Your Name.”
Irina attempts to feel in control by abusing and manipulating men who model for her. However, she is not perceived to be powerful enough to be a legitimate threat to a man's physical wellbeing. Irina's dissociation grows as the narrative progresses and she becomes more unstable, volatile, and unreliable as a narrator.
“I remember finding him very attractive at the time; though any man who pays attention to you, at that age, can transform from frog to prince in the time it takes to tell you he likes your hair.”
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an unreliable narrative by an unlikeable protagonist.
Rating: 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Dark, Literary Fiction
Year of publishing: 2020
Year of reading: 2022
Similar books: Bunny by Mona Awad, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers