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Dora: A Headcase
Ida needs a shrink . . . or so her philandering father thinks, and he sends her to a Seattle psychiatrist. Immediately wise to the head games of her new shrink, whom she nicknames Siggy, Ida begins a coming-of-age journey. At the beginning of her therapy, Ida, whose alter ego is Dora, and her small posse of pals engage in "art attacks." Ida’s in love with her friend Obsidian, but when she gets close to intimacy, she faints or loses her voice. Ida and her friends hatch a plan to secretly film Siggy and make an experimental art film. But something goes wrong at a crucial moment—at a nearby hospital Ida finds her father suffering a heart attack. While Ida loses her voice, a rough cut of her experimental film has gone viral, and unethical media agents are hunting her down. A chase ensues in which everyone wants what Ida has.
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2012
133 people are currently reading
5555 people want to read
About the author
Lidia Yuknavitch
47 books2,368 followersLidia Yuknavitch is the author of the National Bestselling novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, and the novel Dora: A Headcase, Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. Her nonfiction book based on her TED Talk, The Misfit's Manifesto, is forthcoming from TED Books.
She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.
She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 349 reviews
October 10, 2019
so, if you like this character's voice, you will like this book.if it grates on you, you will find this book a drag. me, i am halfway in-between. i didn't mind it sometimes, but there were moments where i was wicked annoyed by how forced and deliberate the "cool" and "unique" voice was.
I shove the last of the bacon in my mouth. It's salty and rubbery yet crisp. What is bacon but fat and gristle and thin strips of ass meat? tastes like... family.
i spent some time eye rolling and imaginary character head-petting, "yes, yes, you are very very cool, ida/dora... putting safety pins in your t-shirts is very cool. creating "art attacks" in the mall and at restaurants and picking your nose to gross people out, and cutting and drugs and oh my, kissing a girl, how very edgy."
so on the one hand, you are yawning because of the strain of how impressed you are supposed to be with these rich girl punk rock antics, and on the other hand, you are thinking OH MY GOD, I USED TO BE SEVENTEEN! some of this seems so embarrassingly familiar. but it was cooler when i did it, i assure you.
well, maybe not. but i always wore clean underwear, so i am one up for hygiene.
how you personally react to this book will depend on whether you are the owner of the lawn, or the punk kids taking a dump on it.
a lot of it is showy artpunk nonsense, and no, thank you, i do not want to watch your film, nor read you describing it and telling me its meaning at the same time. i seen teen-rebellion before. live.
but then there are these other, quieter moments,that are truly lovely. basically, any scene with marlene, ida/dora's rwandan tranny bacon-frying bestie, is going to be worth reading the book for. these parts of the book read like francesca lia block, who has that effortless, floaty quality to her scenes, and whose shock value never seems quite as forced as some of the ones here. but these particular scenes evoke genuine emotion, not the brittle front she is putting up elsewhere.
this is another book that would probably do all right with a YA crowd - it's a little rougher than usual YA, and it is not marketed to them, but i think if anyone's gonna not be annoyed by a feisty teen voice...
don't be mad at me, keri!! i did like it, i'm just feeling particularly old and cranky tonight.write a better review than me - that'll teach me! but even you have to agree that even on the page, ave maria was the worst. i would kick her shrieking ass out of the store the second she set foot. no lie.
come to my blog!
I shove the last of the bacon in my mouth. It's salty and rubbery yet crisp. What is bacon but fat and gristle and thin strips of ass meat? tastes like... family.
i spent some time eye rolling and imaginary character head-petting, "yes, yes, you are very very cool, ida/dora... putting safety pins in your t-shirts is very cool. creating "art attacks" in the mall and at restaurants and picking your nose to gross people out, and cutting and drugs and oh my, kissing a girl, how very edgy."
so on the one hand, you are yawning because of the strain of how impressed you are supposed to be with these rich girl punk rock antics, and on the other hand, you are thinking OH MY GOD, I USED TO BE SEVENTEEN! some of this seems so embarrassingly familiar. but it was cooler when i did it, i assure you.
well, maybe not. but i always wore clean underwear, so i am one up for hygiene.
how you personally react to this book will depend on whether you are the owner of the lawn, or the punk kids taking a dump on it.
a lot of it is showy artpunk nonsense, and no, thank you, i do not want to watch your film, nor read you describing it and telling me its meaning at the same time. i seen teen-rebellion before. live.
but then there are these other, quieter moments,that are truly lovely. basically, any scene with marlene, ida/dora's rwandan tranny bacon-frying bestie, is going to be worth reading the book for. these parts of the book read like francesca lia block, who has that effortless, floaty quality to her scenes, and whose shock value never seems quite as forced as some of the ones here. but these particular scenes evoke genuine emotion, not the brittle front she is putting up elsewhere.
this is another book that would probably do all right with a YA crowd - it's a little rougher than usual YA, and it is not marketed to them, but i think if anyone's gonna not be annoyed by a feisty teen voice...
don't be mad at me, keri!! i did like it, i'm just feeling particularly old and cranky tonight.write a better review than me - that'll teach me! but even you have to agree that even on the page, ave maria was the worst. i would kick her shrieking ass out of the store the second she set foot. no lie.
come to my blog!
September 20, 2012
There are some things you should know about Lidia Yuknavitch: She is in the top tier of people making sentences in 2012. She packs more color into three lines of text than some people get into a photograph. And her voice is loud, man. Bold and unwavering, honest and fearless. Distinctly of this place in time. Like an alto opera singer performing an original pop song shredding Chris Brown. If your internet travels lead you to her byline, by all means read her.
Yuknavitch’s novel “Dora a Headcase” is a retelling of the story of Freud’s Dora, a topic that is a playground for feminist critique. Whether that’s your jam or a real eye-rolling inducing prospect consider that you could read this story and know nothing of Dora, but suspect you’ve heard tell of her escapades on Nick Jr. Psychology 101 is not a prerequisite for this novel. Where Freud’s Dora was billed as hysterical, her dreams interpreted to sexual attraction to her father, Yuknavitch creates a powerful teenager who will use her sessions with Sig -- as she calls him -- in a massive work of art. She’s got a camera hidden on his desk and an audio recorder crammed into her Dora the Explorer purse and she’s got some moves from the Wile E. Coyote playbook to throw at her therapist.
Her real name is Ida and she’s in her mid-teens and her home life is beyond fucked. Mom, once a classical pianist, is now zombiefied by self medication. Dad is sawing away at the buxom Mrs. K while Mr. K has tried to jam his tongue down Ida’s throat. Ida has a posse of friends that includes Marlene, a transexual with hella maternal instinct, Little Teena, big, gay and plays the piano like a dream, Ave Maria is the bulimic with a bank account and Obsidian, a beautiful Native American girl who keeps a sharp piece of obsidian on a necklace in case she has to cut someone. Ida is mad about Obsidian, but every time things start to get pant-y between them, Ida blacks out. They create performance art, they dine and dash and they trade prescription medication and literature.
Ida is troubled and brilliant, a dangerous combo meal for authority figures who abandon or otherwise ignore her or those who deconstruct her behavior and link it to sexual feelings toward her father. She’s a young artist and everything around her is fodder for her film: Sound bites from Sig, the metronome of her Doc Martens as she runs down the sidewalk, voicemail messages from a stranger who wants something from her. When, in the course of recording, she finds that Old Sig has big plans for his case file on her, she draws up a sophisticated retaliation that includes more than the recommended daily allowance of Viagra and a Farrah Fawcett wig.
This book isn’t perfect, but it’s an admirable stab at it. Sticking to the Dora template boxes Yuknavitch in a bit and occasionally feels like a forced bit of plot, specifically when Ida-Dora reveals her dreams and when she loses her voice. And sometimes her antics feel like the antics of Chuck Palahniuk’s casts of misfits as seen in his pre-”Rant” golden era. (Palahniuk writes the foreword to “Dora” and also lives in the same region, so it’s a good chance they are either drawn together as similar writers or are mutually influenced by each other).
Yuknavich’s memoir “The Chronology of Water” was released last year and is the better of the two books. But with “Dora,” she shows versatility and the ability to use her skill set to build something completely different. With the former, she bores into your brain and it’s like popping Lortab and watching the jellyfish channel. With the latter she gives a cunning don’t-fuck-with-me edge and technological dexterity to a teen that has, for eons, been billed as “hysterical.”
Yuknavitch’s novel “Dora a Headcase” is a retelling of the story of Freud’s Dora, a topic that is a playground for feminist critique. Whether that’s your jam or a real eye-rolling inducing prospect consider that you could read this story and know nothing of Dora, but suspect you’ve heard tell of her escapades on Nick Jr. Psychology 101 is not a prerequisite for this novel. Where Freud’s Dora was billed as hysterical, her dreams interpreted to sexual attraction to her father, Yuknavitch creates a powerful teenager who will use her sessions with Sig -- as she calls him -- in a massive work of art. She’s got a camera hidden on his desk and an audio recorder crammed into her Dora the Explorer purse and she’s got some moves from the Wile E. Coyote playbook to throw at her therapist.
Her real name is Ida and she’s in her mid-teens and her home life is beyond fucked. Mom, once a classical pianist, is now zombiefied by self medication. Dad is sawing away at the buxom Mrs. K while Mr. K has tried to jam his tongue down Ida’s throat. Ida has a posse of friends that includes Marlene, a transexual with hella maternal instinct, Little Teena, big, gay and plays the piano like a dream, Ave Maria is the bulimic with a bank account and Obsidian, a beautiful Native American girl who keeps a sharp piece of obsidian on a necklace in case she has to cut someone. Ida is mad about Obsidian, but every time things start to get pant-y between them, Ida blacks out. They create performance art, they dine and dash and they trade prescription medication and literature.
Ida is troubled and brilliant, a dangerous combo meal for authority figures who abandon or otherwise ignore her or those who deconstruct her behavior and link it to sexual feelings toward her father. She’s a young artist and everything around her is fodder for her film: Sound bites from Sig, the metronome of her Doc Martens as she runs down the sidewalk, voicemail messages from a stranger who wants something from her. When, in the course of recording, she finds that Old Sig has big plans for his case file on her, she draws up a sophisticated retaliation that includes more than the recommended daily allowance of Viagra and a Farrah Fawcett wig.
This book isn’t perfect, but it’s an admirable stab at it. Sticking to the Dora template boxes Yuknavitch in a bit and occasionally feels like a forced bit of plot, specifically when Ida-Dora reveals her dreams and when she loses her voice. And sometimes her antics feel like the antics of Chuck Palahniuk’s casts of misfits as seen in his pre-”Rant” golden era. (Palahniuk writes the foreword to “Dora” and also lives in the same region, so it’s a good chance they are either drawn together as similar writers or are mutually influenced by each other).
Yuknavich’s memoir “The Chronology of Water” was released last year and is the better of the two books. But with “Dora,” she shows versatility and the ability to use her skill set to build something completely different. With the former, she bores into your brain and it’s like popping Lortab and watching the jellyfish channel. With the latter she gives a cunning don’t-fuck-with-me edge and technological dexterity to a teen that has, for eons, been billed as “hysterical.”
February 1, 2014
this is extraordinary and beautiful. i can see how it may not be everyone's cup of tea -- kind of the same reason why, say, virginia woolf is not everyone's cup of tea. there are writers who are utterly and unflinchingly original. this is nothing if not unflinching. it doesn't hold anything back. it says what it has to say and it doesn't mince words.
i hope to be able to write a longer review soon. my one suggestion, if you read it, is to read freud's Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. your reading of this book will be all the richer and fuller.
P.S. don't listen to chuck palahniuk. you cannot possibly compare this book to a boybook. there is a quantum leap in operation that prevents comparison. this is a girlbook (NOT a girlybook) through and through. also, honestly, i wouldn't know what book to compare it to. it's its own very lovely, very shocking book.
***
so let me try to say more. lidia yuknavitch has clearly studied the heck out of freud's most famous case study. two of freud's major faults in his treatment of dora are a. silly interpretative moves and b. not believing dora. yuknavitch tackles those faults head on. she leaves all the interpretations intact (all freud's quotes are from the Analysis) and puts them in front of a very sad but extremely spunky, ballsy, and angry 16 year old (am i getting the age right?). the circumstances of ida/dora's life are pretty much the same in the two works, with full update to the 21st century in Y's rendition: super sad mother who's given up on life and daughter, super self-involved father engaged in an unsavory affair, shocking turn of events in which the father basically sells the daughter to his lover's husband in order to keep things quietly humming along.
this whole drama, in freud's analysis and in yuknavitch's rendition, is reproduced on dora's body. dora has problems with her voice, which comes and goes at will. in one great line (in Y's book) dora says, "My silence? It's what kept the house in order." and here let me say that i love the way Y deals with the silencing of girls who know and feel "too much." yes, dora loses her voice (then gets it again, then loses it again, etc.), but she doesn't go down. she fights back by incessantly recording other people's voices with a super duper digital recorder, and by creating films in which the voices of others (stupid voices, ordinary voices, regular city noise, etc.) form the soundtrack. when she does have her voice, dora is the most mouthy, offensive, obscene teenager you've ever met. this has shocked some readers, especially given the fact that the book is written in dora's voice so the offensiveness is not only between quotes but also in the narrative.
but that's how dora speaks. that's how dora gets mad. that's how dora fights the manipulation of adults and freud's relentless attempts at subjugating her sexuality in the name of a sexist view of things in which penises are very powerful and attractive objects and vaginas are very meek and passive objects. dora is not politically correct. not even close. dora is sixteen and hurt and angry.
dora also cuts herself. her cuts are not just injury: they are writing. she writes a new body on her own body. she writes her voice on her body. she doesn't have much to make herself heard, at least to herself, and she uses it to the max.
dora has a wonderful girlfriend whom she adores but with whom she can't make love, or ever make out, because the terrible "transgression" of expressing a woman-on-woman, or simply a female sexuality causes her to pass out.
in the meantime, freud is not a complete asshole. after all, he's the only adult in authority who pays any attention at all (though dora has a little posse of great, queer, alledgedly marginalized friends who are family and salvation and home). so there are some nice moments between dora and sig, alongside some entirely cringe-making moments which you might or might not be able to endure.
as someone who loves psychoanalysis i was happy to see that it wasn't entirely thrown under the bus. freud (the real-life guy) really screwed up with dora, but psychoanalysts (some of them at least) have learned a thing or two between then and now, and they are some of the few mental health professionals who still listen, and pay attention, and hear you.
underneath all of dora's spunk, or alongside it, there's a ton of pain: the pain of abandonment by her parents, the pain of denial of her sexuality, the pain of the utter silencing of her self. i have the impression one or two or a thousand girls and boys might find themselves in dora and say, with her, fuck yeah. cuz kids nowadays, and perhaps always, need all the help they can get.
here's a really excellent word of advice, straight out of dora's mouth, for every adult who finds him or herself in a position of helping kids, especially girl kids, and maybe girl non-kids too: "Um, brainbuster? Next time you work with a female? Ask her which city her body is. Or ocean. Give her poetry books written by women. Like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and H.D. and Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. Let her draw or pain or sign a self before. You. Say. A. Word."
finally, i want to say that this book's language will bring tear of joy to your eyes. also: it's really hilarious. like, LOL hilarious. and heartbreaking. and still hilarious.
i hope to be able to write a longer review soon. my one suggestion, if you read it, is to read freud's Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. your reading of this book will be all the richer and fuller.
P.S. don't listen to chuck palahniuk. you cannot possibly compare this book to a boybook. there is a quantum leap in operation that prevents comparison. this is a girlbook (NOT a girlybook) through and through. also, honestly, i wouldn't know what book to compare it to. it's its own very lovely, very shocking book.
***
so let me try to say more. lidia yuknavitch has clearly studied the heck out of freud's most famous case study. two of freud's major faults in his treatment of dora are a. silly interpretative moves and b. not believing dora. yuknavitch tackles those faults head on. she leaves all the interpretations intact (all freud's quotes are from the Analysis) and puts them in front of a very sad but extremely spunky, ballsy, and angry 16 year old (am i getting the age right?). the circumstances of ida/dora's life are pretty much the same in the two works, with full update to the 21st century in Y's rendition: super sad mother who's given up on life and daughter, super self-involved father engaged in an unsavory affair, shocking turn of events in which the father basically sells the daughter to his lover's husband in order to keep things quietly humming along.
this whole drama, in freud's analysis and in yuknavitch's rendition, is reproduced on dora's body. dora has problems with her voice, which comes and goes at will. in one great line (in Y's book) dora says, "My silence? It's what kept the house in order." and here let me say that i love the way Y deals with the silencing of girls who know and feel "too much." yes, dora loses her voice (then gets it again, then loses it again, etc.), but she doesn't go down. she fights back by incessantly recording other people's voices with a super duper digital recorder, and by creating films in which the voices of others (stupid voices, ordinary voices, regular city noise, etc.) form the soundtrack. when she does have her voice, dora is the most mouthy, offensive, obscene teenager you've ever met. this has shocked some readers, especially given the fact that the book is written in dora's voice so the offensiveness is not only between quotes but also in the narrative.
but that's how dora speaks. that's how dora gets mad. that's how dora fights the manipulation of adults and freud's relentless attempts at subjugating her sexuality in the name of a sexist view of things in which penises are very powerful and attractive objects and vaginas are very meek and passive objects. dora is not politically correct. not even close. dora is sixteen and hurt and angry.
dora also cuts herself. her cuts are not just injury: they are writing. she writes a new body on her own body. she writes her voice on her body. she doesn't have much to make herself heard, at least to herself, and she uses it to the max.
dora has a wonderful girlfriend whom she adores but with whom she can't make love, or ever make out, because the terrible "transgression" of expressing a woman-on-woman, or simply a female sexuality causes her to pass out.
in the meantime, freud is not a complete asshole. after all, he's the only adult in authority who pays any attention at all (though dora has a little posse of great, queer, alledgedly marginalized friends who are family and salvation and home). so there are some nice moments between dora and sig, alongside some entirely cringe-making moments which you might or might not be able to endure.
as someone who loves psychoanalysis i was happy to see that it wasn't entirely thrown under the bus. freud (the real-life guy) really screwed up with dora, but psychoanalysts (some of them at least) have learned a thing or two between then and now, and they are some of the few mental health professionals who still listen, and pay attention, and hear you.
underneath all of dora's spunk, or alongside it, there's a ton of pain: the pain of abandonment by her parents, the pain of denial of her sexuality, the pain of the utter silencing of her self. i have the impression one or two or a thousand girls and boys might find themselves in dora and say, with her, fuck yeah. cuz kids nowadays, and perhaps always, need all the help they can get.
here's a really excellent word of advice, straight out of dora's mouth, for every adult who finds him or herself in a position of helping kids, especially girl kids, and maybe girl non-kids too: "Um, brainbuster? Next time you work with a female? Ask her which city her body is. Or ocean. Give her poetry books written by women. Like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and H.D. and Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. Let her draw or pain or sign a self before. You. Say. A. Word."
finally, i want to say that this book's language will bring tear of joy to your eyes. also: it's really hilarious. like, LOL hilarious. and heartbreaking. and still hilarious.
January 22, 2022
A hyperkinetic bildungsroman-from-heck, slapping Freud around the chops with a frenetic Junoesque narrator with more sass than a CSS compiler. Packed with loud LOLgasms and zipping along at a methedrine-pumped pace, Dora is a novel that snaps at head-quacks in favour of the transgressiveness of making snotty adolescent art. Hoot-and-a-half.
November 11, 2012
I found this in Powells, an autographed copy, and bought it without thinking too much. I didn't know it was happening- I didn't think that after being swept away by The Chronology of Water earlier this year that another new book would fall into my lap 6 months later.
I read this in one sitting. Faithfully comparing my experience-as-reader to mine during Chronology.
Thinking: [yuknavitch]'s brave.
Thinking: this is going to be received like The Marriage Plot after Middlesex. (people are such dicks about that)
Thinking: why am I preoccupied with what the public response will be to this book?
Because I knew while I was reading that I was in the throes of the next thing. Its Yuknavitch. It's woman. It's poetry. It's word creation. It's brazen in a way that feels edgy in 2012. It's so fun to laugh in a dark way without sacrificing sincerity and that's what this book provided me.
This writing is important and I feel humbled to have chanced across it.
I read this in one sitting. Faithfully comparing my experience-as-reader to mine during Chronology.
Thinking: [yuknavitch]'s brave.
Thinking: this is going to be received like The Marriage Plot after Middlesex. (people are such dicks about that)
Thinking: why am I preoccupied with what the public response will be to this book?
Because I knew while I was reading that I was in the throes of the next thing. Its Yuknavitch. It's woman. It's poetry. It's word creation. It's brazen in a way that feels edgy in 2012. It's so fun to laugh in a dark way without sacrificing sincerity and that's what this book provided me.
This writing is important and I feel humbled to have chanced across it.
January 28, 2024
I picked 'Dora: A Headcase' off the central library's new acquisitions shelves, my eye caught by Lidia Yuknavitch's name. I found both The Book of Joan and The Misfit's Manifesto distinctive and memorable, then was intrigued by the central conceit: a modern retelling of one of Freud's case histories. Yuknavitch gives the first person narration to Dora, or rather Ida, who treats therapy as an ongoing battle with her therapist, 'Siggy'. Ida is in her late teens, child of rich and deeply dysfunctional parents. She rampages around getting into trouble with her friends, a bunch of misfits. The plot essentially centres on her complicated plans to torture Siggy and beat him at therapy, although she is not without ambivalence about her own need for help with her mental health. I definitely liked this concept. Ida is interesting and the narrative fast-paced and full of panache.
That said, it is significantly indicative that 'Dora: A Headcase' has an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk. That is definitely who the whole thing reminded me of, specifically Doomed with its sarcastic teenage protagonist Madison. The thing about Palahniuk is that I've read more than a dozen of his books and realised that the twist is always self-destructiveness. In each case it's garlanded with different repulsive details, so reading his oeuvre is a useful way to discover what does and doesn't freak you out. Structurally, though, he's quite repetitive. Yuknavitch unfortunately seems to have adopted a similar approach of grotesque details over depth and character development. As she's a teenager, I guess Ida was never going to achieve incredible self-insight. Still, I found the ending somewhat underwhelming and the disgusting details somewhat excessive. Although The Book of Joan had more intense body horror, it served to build the world and progress the plot. Here, the scene of blood being surgically drained from a penis just went on for too long. The novel's concept is brilliant, but I think could have been executed more thoughtfully without so many gross-out moments.
That said, it is significantly indicative that 'Dora: A Headcase' has an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk. That is definitely who the whole thing reminded me of, specifically Doomed with its sarcastic teenage protagonist Madison. The thing about Palahniuk is that I've read more than a dozen of his books and realised that the twist is always self-destructiveness. In each case it's garlanded with different repulsive details, so reading his oeuvre is a useful way to discover what does and doesn't freak you out. Structurally, though, he's quite repetitive. Yuknavitch unfortunately seems to have adopted a similar approach of grotesque details over depth and character development. As she's a teenager, I guess Ida was never going to achieve incredible self-insight. Still, I found the ending somewhat underwhelming and the disgusting details somewhat excessive. Although The Book of Joan had more intense body horror, it served to build the world and progress the plot. Here, the scene of blood being surgically drained from a penis just went on for too long. The novel's concept is brilliant, but I think could have been executed more thoughtfully without so many gross-out moments.
February 10, 2013
Such a disappointment! Much like "The Chronology of Water", Yuknavitch starts strong, and ends weakly. Really weakly. While for most part I was blown away by "The Chronology of Water" - it was definitely well-written, and absolutely captivating - "Dora" on the other hand, comes across as any old YA novel out there. And if you've read "The Chronology", you can very plainly see that "Dora" is simply a modernization of Yuknavitch's own adolescence. (Or at least many of the parts previously written about in "The Chronology".) And like some desperate parent trying to be "hip", Yuknavitch's narration as a 15 year old girl was just plain embarrassing. (Do you know of any modern teens who use the word "bitchin'" as an adjective? That was outdated when I was a teen.) I definitely saw a lot of my younger self in Ida/Dora, pulling a lot of the same cry for attention shit. Maybe being an adult, being in the real world has jaded me and it was hard to empathize with a spoiled, rich girl and her spoiled, rich friends. These are the kind of kids I see in the mall and roll my eyes at. I was one of those kids and I was a stupid fucker because of it. I apologize to my mother every day because of it.
Reading this book actually made me angry to tell you the truth. Ida/Dora/Lidia Yuknavitch all are these flawed characters, but everything is handed to them. Everything works out in the end. And that's maybe why I can't empathize with this novel. Happy endings aren't realistic, and in this case (more so in her novel than her memoir) it's just not believable. That sounds horrible to write, but in the case of "Dora" it's very much the truth. Dora was never a victim, and the redemption is not her own, it wasn't something she earned, it's something she lucked into, something she stumbled upon after taking advantage of so many people. If you're going to give your character a happy ending, fine. But make them work for it or DESERVE it at the very least.
Reading this book actually made me angry to tell you the truth. Ida/Dora/Lidia Yuknavitch all are these flawed characters, but everything is handed to them. Everything works out in the end. And that's maybe why I can't empathize with this novel. Happy endings aren't realistic, and in this case (more so in her novel than her memoir) it's just not believable. That sounds horrible to write, but in the case of "Dora" it's very much the truth. Dora was never a victim, and the redemption is not her own, it wasn't something she earned, it's something she lucked into, something she stumbled upon after taking advantage of so many people. If you're going to give your character a happy ending, fine. But make them work for it or DESERVE it at the very least.
April 24, 2022
The key to this book may be a razor-sharp recollection of the source text (Freud's Dora, which I have read, but don't remember specifics), in which case this could be a 3 star book, but regardless: I have never read such a repugnant teenage girl. The praise suggests that teenage girls are inherently terrifying and Yuknavitch does a ~magical~ job capturing it, but like, I was a teenage girl and I taught high school. And Dora/Ida is just...bratty, pretty much, like privileged white-girl bratty, unfathomably rude, in a lot of pain and requiring a lot of mental help ----- not this firebomb brilliant adolescent character. See my review of Legs Led Astray for more context on my feelings around this type of character, but I find them extremely boring at the best of times, and ridiculous drug-addled caricatures more often than not. Like -- it's just so painfully obvious this is a middle-aged woman pretending to write as a teenager. This was written in 2012 and I was teaching in 2012, and NONE of my students would ever have spoken or texted the way Yuknavitch ~cleverly~ makes Dora do. With respect, anyone who is into this kind of representation of teenage girls very likely doesn't know any teenage girls in real life, probably has a lot of unresolved shit from their own adolescence to process, and is more into all of it for the ~shock value~.
And because Dora is so abhorrent and has precisely zero redeeming qualities (which is really, really too bad, because I remember really liking her and her sharp wit and snark in Freud's source text -- she's just turned into a joke of herself, here), when her deux ex machina life culminates into complete redemption (in the form of a random massive inheritance) at the end, it's more infuriating than cathartic. The whole book is kind of infuriatingly silly -- the cheesy use of Jung as a flashy counterpart to Freud; the absolutely absurd media frenzy around Freud's case studies (and that could have been so cool; such a let-down); the stupid nicknames the "posse" gives one another; I could go on. Basically: on its own, a quick and very disappointing read, but I'm willing to defer to anyone who actually knows Freud's text quite well and found pieces of interest in here. I just don't care enough to go back to it.
And because Dora is so abhorrent and has precisely zero redeeming qualities (which is really, really too bad, because I remember really liking her and her sharp wit and snark in Freud's source text -- she's just turned into a joke of herself, here), when her deux ex machina life culminates into complete redemption (in the form of a random massive inheritance) at the end, it's more infuriating than cathartic. The whole book is kind of infuriatingly silly -- the cheesy use of Jung as a flashy counterpart to Freud; the absolutely absurd media frenzy around Freud's case studies (and that could have been so cool; such a let-down); the stupid nicknames the "posse" gives one another; I could go on. Basically: on its own, a quick and very disappointing read, but I'm willing to defer to anyone who actually knows Freud's text quite well and found pieces of interest in here. I just don't care enough to go back to it.
Read
July 11, 201238 pages in and I'm totally over this book. I'm sure it's super. Gotten great reviews. Chuck Palahniuk wrote the forward and he's a god, right? (Never mind that I loved the movie "Fight Club" about 10,000,000 times more than I did the book. That never happens. You're always supposed to love the book more than the movie. But I saw the movie first, read the book years later. And it IS my favourite movie. But let's never mind all that.)
The first problem I had with this book is that it is written in the language of a contemporary teenager and I'm just way way WAAAAAAAAAAY too old to cope with that. I have a very hard time taking teenagers seriously, especially ones who are going very far out of their way to shock their elders. Frankly, when this sort of thing starts up I just shut down. No, I don't intend to be shocked by you. I just want you to shut up so I can go back to the thoughts rolling around in my middle-aged head. I don't get kids today anyway. All they want to do is dance in the club, get wasted and get down to as much orgying as they can pack into the giant humvee limo they fantasize about rolling around town in, pretending to be grownups so hard and so fast that one wonders, by the time they are 21 and they have done it all already what will be left for them to do? What kind of bizarre sexed-up, bath-salt-fueled, annoying, vapid, pointless Party Monsters have all my peers been raising? And how glad am I that I haven't added any of these people to the world?
My second problem? The shrink in the book blithers out tons of Freudian garbage to this teenage girl. Who in the hell is still going to shrinks for Pure Straight Freudian therapy? Who sends a teenage girl to Pure Straight Freudian therapy? Haven't we as a culture moved WAY beyond that crap?
So no, I'm not going to continue this book. It's just a little too provocative, it's trying a bit too hard. So I'll be picking up Leigh Russell's "Cut Short" and heading back to my beloved UK for a nice mystery, thank you very much. This old hen really does prefer them above all.
The first problem I had with this book is that it is written in the language of a contemporary teenager and I'm just way way WAAAAAAAAAAY too old to cope with that. I have a very hard time taking teenagers seriously, especially ones who are going very far out of their way to shock their elders. Frankly, when this sort of thing starts up I just shut down. No, I don't intend to be shocked by you. I just want you to shut up so I can go back to the thoughts rolling around in my middle-aged head. I don't get kids today anyway. All they want to do is dance in the club, get wasted and get down to as much orgying as they can pack into the giant humvee limo they fantasize about rolling around town in, pretending to be grownups so hard and so fast that one wonders, by the time they are 21 and they have done it all already what will be left for them to do? What kind of bizarre sexed-up, bath-salt-fueled, annoying, vapid, pointless Party Monsters have all my peers been raising? And how glad am I that I haven't added any of these people to the world?
My second problem? The shrink in the book blithers out tons of Freudian garbage to this teenage girl. Who in the hell is still going to shrinks for Pure Straight Freudian therapy? Who sends a teenage girl to Pure Straight Freudian therapy? Haven't we as a culture moved WAY beyond that crap?
So no, I'm not going to continue this book. It's just a little too provocative, it's trying a bit too hard. So I'll be picking up Leigh Russell's "Cut Short" and heading back to my beloved UK for a nice mystery, thank you very much. This old hen really does prefer them above all.
January 29, 2013
This book is a satire, and must be read as one; this way the author can be allowed the poetic license crucial in telling this story and taking this revenge on Freud. Yuknavitch has proved herself as a fiction writer. She has captured the voice of a strong but wounded teenage girl. As usual, her prose is exquisite (although I will admit there are times where I think a little editing would make it sing even more). I wish the publishers didn't rely so heavily on using her ties to Chuck Palahniuk as a way to sell her writing. I don't think Dora is a female fight club. It is something else. I think the two authors do well for each other as far as participating in the same writing group, but Yuknavitch doesn't need his stamp on every piece of her work she puts out.
After growing up in America, I'm glad the young girl voice is finally getting some exposure. I've read some of the other reviews on here regarding the "grating" voice of Dora. This is how I felt reading The Catcher in the Rye (I love Salinger's short stories). Not listening to these girls in any shape or form harms the entire society. I'd be interested to see Dora and The Catcher in the Rye taught side by side.
After growing up in America, I'm glad the young girl voice is finally getting some exposure. I've read some of the other reviews on here regarding the "grating" voice of Dora. This is how I felt reading The Catcher in the Rye (I love Salinger's short stories). Not listening to these girls in any shape or form harms the entire society. I'd be interested to see Dora and The Catcher in the Rye taught side by side.
November 28, 2012
I am so sorry Lidia - but this one does not hold a candle to The Chronology of Water. Headcase was like a Fantasy B Movie, along the lines of a slasher movie without the slash. I can see that you worked out your anger at psychotherapists and anyone in authority. And I can see that you may attract other teen girls who need a voice for their anger. But the characters were out of a ridiculous B movie, and I mean ridiculous. Not edgy, but ridiculous. I really had to skim the last half. And the final blow was the - shall I say - windfall laid upon Ida/Dora. Did you mean for this to be a representation of a teen girls' fantasy? Because if so I think it will be lost on those who could have benefitted from your book most. Sort of seemed like you wrote a sensationalistic/B-movie/teen angst/angry girl with all the bells and whistles. You pulled out all the stops. Way too gratuitous. It's hard to support you with this book.
July 28, 2022
Actually brilliant, original, experimental, meaningful and giving Freud a well deserved slap on the bum (though he'd probably like that).
July 10, 2021
There's so much to like here. Yuknavitch's stellar writing (although I don't think she quite nails millennial-teen lingo--if Dora was 16 when this was published, she'd be just about my age now), the laugh-out-loud humor throughout the book, the ambition of the whole thing.
Ultimately I just really love how she reappropriated the character of Dora--she's dealing with so much and the stakes are so high, but she's so emotionally stunted and young that she doesn't have the language or experience to deal with any of it, and nobody is able to help her--least of all Freud--so her response to the world is violence and cynicism. It's a moving and incredibly well-written and provocative coming-of-age novel. Read it.
Ultimately I just really love how she reappropriated the character of Dora--she's dealing with so much and the stakes are so high, but she's so emotionally stunted and young that she doesn't have the language or experience to deal with any of it, and nobody is able to help her--least of all Freud--so her response to the world is violence and cynicism. It's a moving and incredibly well-written and provocative coming-of-age novel. Read it.
October 2, 2012
I thought maybe Palahniuk was exaggerating when he said Dora was a girls' Fight Club.
I was wrong.
I thought maybe Ida wouldn't have much to say to me. I had my trouble when I was a young adult. Lots of it, but not like Ida's.
I was wrong.
"Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it's just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life. Pain. Loss. Love. And what you all so fondly refer to as wisdom. Wanna know the difference between adult wisdom and young adult wisdom? You have the ability to look back at your past and interpret it. I have the ability to look at my present and live it with my whole body. Wanna know what we have in common? Dead dreams. Trust me when I say no adult likes to talk about that.
Plus how do you even know you adult humans have the right interpretations of your own lives? People are like books and movies. There are about a gazillion different interpretations. Deal with it."
Page 174.
I adore Dora.
I was wrong.
I thought maybe Ida wouldn't have much to say to me. I had my trouble when I was a young adult. Lots of it, but not like Ida's.
I was wrong.
"Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it's just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life. Pain. Loss. Love. And what you all so fondly refer to as wisdom. Wanna know the difference between adult wisdom and young adult wisdom? You have the ability to look back at your past and interpret it. I have the ability to look at my present and live it with my whole body. Wanna know what we have in common? Dead dreams. Trust me when I say no adult likes to talk about that.
Plus how do you even know you adult humans have the right interpretations of your own lives? People are like books and movies. There are about a gazillion different interpretations. Deal with it."
Page 174.
I adore Dora.
March 30, 2020
AMAZING fun story. Can be read in an afternoon as if it were a novella. I read it again a second time just for fun...
Just finished reading Dora: A Headcase for the fifth time. ...to be continued
This ranks in with my top 5 books of all time. It's now become my goto read when feeling even a tad depressed due to my ability to relate(embarrassingly??) to the MC, as i can reflect back on 20-something me--i can laugh at myself now everytime i revisit this book.
Yuknavitch writes with such frank honesty through her cgaracters--so true to those of us who have dealt with similar issues.
Just finished reading Dora: A Headcase for the fifth time. ...to be continued
This ranks in with my top 5 books of all time. It's now become my goto read when feeling even a tad depressed due to my ability to relate(embarrassingly??) to the MC, as i can reflect back on 20-something me--i can laugh at myself now everytime i revisit this book.
Yuknavitch writes with such frank honesty through her cgaracters--so true to those of us who have dealt with similar issues.
June 22, 2016
Dora, tam bir anti kahraman. İtici, rahatsızlık verici, huzursuzluğu ve mutsuzluğu okurken size de geçen cinsten.
Hikaye ilginç, yazım dili berrak olsa da bizim yıldızlarımız pek barışmadı
Hikaye ilginç, yazım dili berrak olsa da bizim yıldızlarımız pek barışmadı
March 12, 2025
2.5 ⭐️ A modern twist on Sigmund Freud’s case study on Dora.
The narrator, experiencing hysteria, was so (understandably) unreliable that at times it was hard to read or stay interested.
But I do love a good epilogue like this one.
The narrator, experiencing hysteria, was so (understandably) unreliable that at times it was hard to read or stay interested.
But I do love a good epilogue like this one.
April 27, 2022
On a specific walk, I take there is a modernist home I love. I always walk past the home and blow a kiss and reach my hand outward to grasp. I think everyone who walks near the house wants to live inside so fucking bad. None of us will unless a divorce or an accident takes place. Adults wet the bed too.
Dora serves as the poison pill, or a person you find to be most addictive. Certain people love to receive "analysis," so they can have fun reading the notes. We scarcely depict any true inklings to go further than just being one step removed from actually receiving help.
Lidia is a professional at subsisting the ideologies of someone who went to Bates (via Exeter.) There are no cancellations of Tucker Carlson or terminologies deemed exiled. Dora turns the reader's head towards their internal issues instead of pointing them towards the nearest Van Clef & Arpels.
Lidia has continuously been an author I've recommended as a "must-read." For men, especially. Dora is hypermasculine in modern senses. A "Fuck you," to any conversation revolving around a specific "ailment." This is based on the totality of the disturbed. Lidia is a cultural mastermind capable of changing the status quo through her words.
Sticking your fingers in the chartreuse honeypot is not the same as stepping on the snake. It does feel good to be slapped at times; she is consistently saying that perhaps it is better to be the person sleeping under the bridge than the egoist architect (archetype.)
Very mundane at times - this book runneth over during the fleeting excerpts of caution/dismissive notions. Clinical disdain.
This book is a sugar-coated fentanyl pill with the hopes for the reader to overdose or change their Joe Rogan Experience /CallHerDaddy mind.
Recommended.
Dora serves as the poison pill, or a person you find to be most addictive. Certain people love to receive "analysis," so they can have fun reading the notes. We scarcely depict any true inklings to go further than just being one step removed from actually receiving help.
Lidia is a professional at subsisting the ideologies of someone who went to Bates (via Exeter.) There are no cancellations of Tucker Carlson or terminologies deemed exiled. Dora turns the reader's head towards their internal issues instead of pointing them towards the nearest Van Clef & Arpels.
Lidia has continuously been an author I've recommended as a "must-read." For men, especially. Dora is hypermasculine in modern senses. A "Fuck you," to any conversation revolving around a specific "ailment." This is based on the totality of the disturbed. Lidia is a cultural mastermind capable of changing the status quo through her words.
Sticking your fingers in the chartreuse honeypot is not the same as stepping on the snake. It does feel good to be slapped at times; she is consistently saying that perhaps it is better to be the person sleeping under the bridge than the egoist architect (archetype.)
Very mundane at times - this book runneth over during the fleeting excerpts of caution/dismissive notions. Clinical disdain.
This book is a sugar-coated fentanyl pill with the hopes for the reader to overdose or change their Joe Rogan Experience /CallHerDaddy mind.
Recommended.
February 4, 2017
"Böh-hüü, degil mi? Hayat adil değil. Ama hayatın aile diye bir arabada kısılıp kaldıgınız ve her dönemeçte seksomanyak sapık yetiskinlerin üstünüze atladıgı, Disney'in kotü versiyonu bir korku tuneli de olması gerekmiyor, degil mi? Çocuklariniz icin nasıl bir dünya tüneli yarattığinıza bakın. Uyuşturucularınızı istememize şaşmamalı. En azından bunu borçlusunuz."
-Ergenken bile ergenleri ve ergenliği sevmeyen biri olarak, ergen (hem de emo kıvamında ergen) bir karakterin bakış açısıyla kitabı okumak çok sıktı beni.
-Kitapta gerçekten orijinal bir şekilde Freud'a atıflarda bulunulmasını falan bekliyordum ama tüm kitap Freud'un "Dora vakası"nın modernize hale getirilip romanlaştırılmasından başka bir işlev görmüyor.
-Kitabın çok zayıf bir hikayesi vardı. Tüm kitabı okuduktan sonra şöyle oldum:
-Yine de kitaba 1 yıldız veremedim. Herhalde her ne kadar emo/ergence olsa da yetişkinlerin kötülenmesi hoşuma gittiği için o da:)
-Ergenken bile ergenleri ve ergenliği sevmeyen biri olarak, ergen (hem de emo kıvamında ergen) bir karakterin bakış açısıyla kitabı okumak çok sıktı beni.
-Kitapta gerçekten orijinal bir şekilde Freud'a atıflarda bulunulmasını falan bekliyordum ama tüm kitap Freud'un "Dora vakası"nın modernize hale getirilip romanlaştırılmasından başka bir işlev görmüyor.
-Kitabın çok zayıf bir hikayesi vardı. Tüm kitabı okuduktan sonra şöyle oldum:
-Yine de kitaba 1 yıldız veremedim. Herhalde her ne kadar emo/ergence olsa da yetişkinlerin kötülenmesi hoşuma gittiği için o da:)
October 7, 2018
I love the premise of getting some revenge on Sigmund Freud. But I found this writing unbearable. Nearly every page holds an ablist slur (r-word or clever derivation thereof). I'd try to chalk that up to the immature narrator, but Yuknavitch uses the same language in her memoir. And the narrator is full of fury and violence for anyone else who isn't as enlightened as she is, so my judgment feels sort of fair. Yuknavitch would probably insist that she's just not interested in being 'pc,' but I think it goes deeper than that. I think she needs to consistently denigrate people with mental disabilities so she can feel that her own (and the narrator's) mental problems are different - they're hip and cool and smart and edgy and will win you art prizes.
There are some good characters, like the trans black woman refugee - but she is perpetually mothering and giving to this mean little rich white girl narrator. Same with the person in a wheelchair, who shows up just to help her out several times.
In the end this book is a lot of sentences like these (an actual quote): "I can't tell you how much better I feel when I'm not in the Nazi daughter box - our so-called home. But ten o'clock at night in downtown Seattle is uber cool."
One of the glowing reviews calls this book "a smart, fast, chick Fight Club." With disappointment I agree.
There are some good characters, like the trans black woman refugee - but she is perpetually mothering and giving to this mean little rich white girl narrator. Same with the person in a wheelchair, who shows up just to help her out several times.
In the end this book is a lot of sentences like these (an actual quote): "I can't tell you how much better I feel when I'm not in the Nazi daughter box - our so-called home. But ten o'clock at night in downtown Seattle is uber cool."
One of the glowing reviews calls this book "a smart, fast, chick Fight Club." With disappointment I agree.
March 1, 2021
Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch
5 out of 5 💊
Wow. I picked this book up without even realizing it was a queer themed book and I absolutely loved everything about it.
Dora: A Headcase is a retelling of one of Freud’s Case histories, about a young woman whom he named “Dora”. The story is told from Dora’s, or rather Ida’s (Dora is her alter ego in this) point of view. This is a book that I can easily say is not for everyone.
Dora’s story is a story about therapy, women’s sexuality, womanhood, art, film, obscene teenagers, medication, self-injury, and finally: being heard.
Personally, I found the narration to be HILARIOUS, while most reviews I’ve read have claimed to hate her narration. I can’t hate her because I was her! Ida is offensive, brazen, relentlessly loud, spunky, angry and most of all, hurt.
This is a book I will most definitely read again. I was laughing so hard at so many weird moments. That being said, Dora: A Headcase is not for the faint of heart, go into it with an open mind, open heart and just be prepared to remember what it was like to be a teenager who’s voice literally and metaphorically disappears.
I’m ecstatic to read Yuknavitch’s other books~!
5 out of 5 💊
Wow. I picked this book up without even realizing it was a queer themed book and I absolutely loved everything about it.
Dora: A Headcase is a retelling of one of Freud’s Case histories, about a young woman whom he named “Dora”. The story is told from Dora’s, or rather Ida’s (Dora is her alter ego in this) point of view. This is a book that I can easily say is not for everyone.
Dora’s story is a story about therapy, women’s sexuality, womanhood, art, film, obscene teenagers, medication, self-injury, and finally: being heard.
Personally, I found the narration to be HILARIOUS, while most reviews I’ve read have claimed to hate her narration. I can’t hate her because I was her! Ida is offensive, brazen, relentlessly loud, spunky, angry and most of all, hurt.
This is a book I will most definitely read again. I was laughing so hard at so many weird moments. That being said, Dora: A Headcase is not for the faint of heart, go into it with an open mind, open heart and just be prepared to remember what it was like to be a teenager who’s voice literally and metaphorically disappears.
I’m ecstatic to read Yuknavitch’s other books~!
October 21, 2012
I love fast paced stories with strong female voice, dark pathos, resilience, bold sexuality, and wicked humor. Dora: a Headcase has it all! Like Lidia's earlier work (The Chronology of Water), this book provoked a lot of thinking about "mental illness". Whereas it would be easy to see Ida/Dora through the lens of mental illness, I found myself really admiring her strength, creativity, intelligence and dogged determination as she experienced a painful adolescence undercut by family dysfunction. Her choice in friends, in how she related to her therapist (Sigmund Freud), in how she experienced and medicated her pain, and how she expressed her art left me breathless ~ Wow!!! Her character reminded me very much of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Sometimes behavior we might consider as illness is really a reasonable/adaptive response to f****d up situations. Dora:a Headcase is a fast paced, totally engaging ride that left me admiring Lidia Yuknavitch even more than I did after her first book. Can't wait for what she turns out next!
July 31, 2015
Disturbing, but smart, entertaining, and gratifying as an illustration of people growing up despite their upbringing. I was shocked at the presentation as normal of prescription drug abuse among the teens in the book as well as their massive alcohol intake. I don't think that young teens can consent to sex and sexual acts with adults where there is not a balance of power; the teens in the book seemed to shrug off what I viewed as rape and forced sexual behavior imposed by adults. There was also an implication of trading sex for stuff by manipulating the adult. I don't know much about Freud's Dora; I did look her up in Wikipedia before I started reading, so I think I got the references. Compare Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Fun to see contemporary references and technology about audio and film. Plus, enjoyed meeting the character Marlene.
November 28, 2012
Yuknavitch is an amazing writer. Every sentence is perfection. And she nails the voice of an angry teenage girl, Dora/Ida, who has been failed or used by almost every significant adult in her life. Ida's rage fuels a series of cathartic acts of revenge, some of which had me laughing out loud. But the ending disappointingly implies (channeling Woolf's A Room of One's Own perhaps?) that what a woman really needs in the long run is financial independence. Ida manages to untether herself from her past, but the wounds inflicted early on remain unhealed. Realistic perhaps, but I was hoping for more for Ida in the long run.
August 18, 2012
So if I you didn't like Chronology of Water I'm not recommending this to you. It's unflinching and unapologetic and a farce and a lovely place to go with the Mixed Feelings one has about Freud, its feminism's own Monkeywrench Gang, and maybe best, the story has a creo though it's not painful hit you over the head credo: "We got to bust ass to be good mirrors for her. But also for us. We gotta keep reflecting back to each other else get caught in this pop money death culture's gaze. We gotta make our own families and write our own sexualities our own selves. Story it."
October 28, 2012
I got half way through this book and I just couldn't finish it. I didn't like the main character, I found her unbelievable. I found her friends annoying. Maybe because I grew up and hung out with the "outcast" kids I just found the kids in this book ridiculous. I'm bummed out I didn't like this book, I was looking forward to reading it. Boo.
July 9, 2012
I wish I had written this book.
August 25, 2012
This is a dirty little whore of a book. Fun, fast paced and freaky. Not the beautiful prose of "THe Chronology of Water" but revelatory of angsty and angry teen girl spirit and strength.
January 12, 2013
It's been some days since I finished this, but I just keep thinking about it and how I want to read it again right now and I want to read everything Lidia has ever written.
October 30, 2015
yes yes yes yes.
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