I can already say this will be my favourite of 2018.

I’ve read a lot of good books this year, but I feel confident that Her Body and Other Parties will be my favourite read of 2018. Carmen Maria Machado’s collection of short stories is nothing short of perfection, and brings everything I was looking for in a year of reading mostly feminist, female-identified, and woman-positive fiction writers.

Every story in this collection is deliciously good, though, like many, my personal favourites are “The Husband Stitch,” “Real Women Have Bodies,” and “Eight Bites.” My least favourite was “Especially Heinous” but only because it was insanely long, (much like the series it mimics) and once I got the weird vibe of it, I didn’t feel the need to keep going.

Machado has a beautiful way of describing attraction, love, motherhood, queerness, intention, pain, fear, belief, loss, stress, frustration, and every other very real, very human feeling or emotion that we all go through. I sincerely hate that some men might not read Her Body, because it’s too much about women. Overall, I was captured by the humanness of every story and how much I was able to sink down and engage with the characters inhabiting each story.

I can’t recommend this book enough, and have to credit bonnie’s CBR review for reminding me to reserve a copy from my library. This book is so, so good. Please do yourself a favour and find a copy now!

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Illustration by Janelle Barone, used with permission.