Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: "The Bride Stripped Bare" was orginially published anonymously because, as Gemmell claims in the novel, she wanted to drop inhibitions and write as truthful a book as possible. I believe she has succeeded in creating an exquisitely honest novel...so blunt, in fact, that it drew me in and I couldn't put it down.
It must be said that this work is extremely graphic (erotic), in a sexual sense, however I believe this is warranted because the character's realization and expansion of her true self manifests itself in her sexuality. It is done very matter-of-factly, even maturely.
I reccommend "The Bride Stripped Bare" for adults interested in women's studies, the realization of self, and for those who revel in discovering different literary forms. Women would most likely be more perceptive to its content.
Rating: 
Summary: Eroticism and Intimacy
Review: A strange mix of eroticism and intimacy as the author (allegedly the Aussie, Nikki Gemmel) explores in the style of a diary or journal, the inner soul of a young woman experiencing love, lust and childbirth in her early married years.
The book is not an simple read but rather a long series of one or two page vignettes with chapter headings seemingly giving the sort of advise a mother might give a daughter which are in turn challenged by the chapter's prose. Sometimes it was a source of unnecessary frustration trying to relate the heading to an individual chapter's content.
While the book would undoubtedly give some readers a little titillation, as it is a frank exploration of many aspects of arousal and passion, it is not a 'hard-core' sex on every page book of eroticism. Male readers may well be bemused and wondering what it is all about.
The writing is in the first person and starts with a young lady on her honeymoon in Marrakech. There is the initial relationship with Cole her new husband and then a new lover, Gabriel, who seems just to appear on the scene.
The 138 lessons in life became somewhat less interesting as one starts to search for some depth or thread of a story, which frankly was lacking. This is a book which might for some women allow them the private reflection of past emotional experiences in love and lust as well as the intensity of pain and turmoil in pregnancy. For them it may well be a must read. However, for most readers of fiction I doubt they will read it all but skim and be somewhat disappointed.
The prose is in places well constructed and emotive as in the 'slow creep of the cold' that one experiences when walking into a pool for the first time but at times it gets a bit lost - 'the first scrum of morning birds sounds like fat spitting and crackling in a kitchen'. Can't say I have ever heard those birds but it may be an Australian thing (though it is set in Marrakech).
That said there are reviewers who have gushed praise on this book, though they would seem to be mostly women. Of course, it is a best seller in England and Australia so it must be striking a cord in many. I would recommend a read of more than a few pages before buying it. You may be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC, great for a book club
Review: Great book, fast read. WOuld be excellent for discussion in a book club. Really makes you think and wonder throughout the whole read. Didn't want to put it down.....had to know what happens.
Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: I can't even begin to explain what I thought about this book. I was mad, I was scared, I was in awe... I think I felt every emotion known to mankind reading this book. I picked this up at the bookstore on a whim. I had no idea what it was about. I figured it was another fluffy chick lit book. But when I started reading it, I realized that it isn't the same as all of the rest. This book is what I've been through! I couldn't put this book down for three days. I've felt myself change for a man, I've thought my significant other was having an affair with my best friend, I've turned around and had an affair with another man that I thought I was deeply, madly, uncontrollably in love with but in the end realized that it would not work. This book filled me with so many raw emotions, it was sometimes frightening. Since the author is anonymous (much like I am in writing this review), it is hard to say if this is truly a work of fiction or not. Either way, this book is hauntingly accurate and beautifully written with tongue-in-cheek lessons at the beginning of every chapter. I highly recommend every woman to read this.
Rating:
Summary: extraordinary, heartbreaking, true
Review: I cannot get this book out of my head. It is intensely honest, and because of that, I admire the author's courage. But it also has a strong narrative pace and I found I could't put it down once I'd begun it. I haven't read a book with such ferocity and pleasure for years. It has made me rethink my marriage, and the level of honesty with which I'm conducting my life. I think this book is an important read for all women. I keep on recommending it to friends and they all seem to love it just as intensely as I did.
Rating:
Summary: A good book but not revelatory
Review: I have very mixed opinions about this book. As a story, I enjoyed it: the prose is often excellent, the voice and internal life of the heroine is well done. The framework of the story is intriguing and made me eager to finish it, although the ending isn't so much an ending as a stopping. Against that, there's a great deal of artificiality. The relentless use of the second person grates. The cardboard cut-out characters of the dull-as-dishwater husband and the impossibly perfect, hunky but virginal, paramour are unrealistic and lack life. But that should be OK, because this is a novel in form only. Actually, it's an exposition of women's attitudes to sex and their secret feelings and desires. The real purpose of the book is to lay out and discuss these hitherto unknown areas of human life. But it doesn't and this is where the book spectacularly fails. The sexual revelations aren't revelatory: who doesn't know nowadays that often marriages lose their sexual passion after a time, that many women don't enjoy performing oral sex or that someone can have a secret life that is at odds with their external persona? Women masturbate and enjoy it. Gasp! Couples can experiment to enhance their sex lives. No, really!? One of the most difficult aspects of the book is its claim to speak for all women, which is inaccurate and a little offensive. This self-important attitude is present on every page: the fact that it's dedicated to "every husband"; the continual use of the second person; the anonymity of the author (which actually seems to have more to do with marketing than any other consideration). The extreme inability to speak about sex that characterises the protagonist (and, by extension, the author) just doesn't describe most women I know. While many of the problems and concerns the book describes will I'm sure be familiar to female readers, it completely ignores the fact that this is well-trodden ground nowadays. There's been a continual conversation going on since the 60's about women's role in and marriage, their frustrations with men and society and the necessity of reshaping the lives of women to reflect their sexuality. None of this is evident in the book at all. The treatment of sex is very Cosmo and the fact that you can find a much more frank discussion of female sexuality on TV in the form of Sex And The City indicates that the book falls way short of its intentions. Surely literature should be more challenging and subversive than mainstream TV? I thought this may have been something to do with age, that the book is aimed at older women than my peers but knowing that Nikki Gemmell is only 36 makes this extremely perplexing. As I say, as a story about a woman and her particular marriage and her particular responses, this is a good book. And if it had been published in the 60's, 70's or even 80's then I can see how it could have been shocking and revelatory. But evn though many of the problems and concerns it treats with are real for many women, this book fails to encompass the real complexity of these issues in the modern world. It isn't frank enough. It tells you little you don't already know. It presents black and white, unsatisfying caricatures of the men involved, which mean that the issues aren't explored in sufficient depth and detail. Overall the book falls abysmally short of the sort of impact it's trying to have and which it rather smugly assumes it does have.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: I thought this book was beautiful,fascinating, amazing and true. I read the whole thing in one day; I literally could not put it down. I think it's very relevant to our world and will strike a chord in men as well as women. I randomnly picked it out at the bookstore and am so pleased i did. Of all the books I have read it is definetly at the top of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: haunting
Review: I usually think a book is a great book when I can't put it down and when i'm drawn to the style it's written in. The Bride Stripped Bare did both those things for me and left me with a very haunted feeling.
I am very surprised it hasn't extended to a wider audience because the story is eloquently written and is about a true awakening of the soul. The end note reveals that it is a very personal book, hence the anonymous author, and this can be truly felt. The detail of feelings is so intense that you know it has been really felt.
Whoever comes across this page should purchase this book, as it will change the way you look at things. One of the striking things about it is that it is written in a way that includes you. It makes you think about your own life and your own existence. The ending is unsatisfying in a satisfying way and I always feel that if a story can provide that for me, I think about it for longer than others.
A great novel that will leave you yearning for love, yet questioning it at the same time.
Rating: 
Summary: This novel would suit powerless women or those born pre 1975
Review: I'm an Aussie, so would usually pump a good Australian author, but Nikki Gemmell has wasted my eyes and reading space. After reading, Lovesong, the bride stripped bare and shiver, all I can say is, "you've read one, you've read 'em all". How boring. How did this person get published over better writers?
The running theme through all 3 novels above, is a confused angst ridden twitty voiceless dumb female, who ends up, with a bun in the oven, but thought it was nice to keep it a secret .... in SHIVER and LOVESONG, the pregnancy is a big secret as both daddies die without really giving a toss about mommy, nor knowing she was preggers.
Gemmell's female character's seem to think and dwell, ponder more on men that really don't give a rats about the "ponderer".
Yet the female host of this babe is so happy she has this/his private "gift".
In the bridesmaid stripped bare, she did give birth at the end of the book to her hubby's kid. The other two books, the main female was impregnated .... and carried the "seed" with joy even though the daddy was dead.
Such boring repetitive themes. Why buy Gemmell's novels, when you can read one, and you've read 'em all?
Also, as a reader, you develop no empathy or compassion for the characters, male and female, they're just so dull! Any real person may have a coffee with this person and choose to never make contact again, they're too boring and shallow.
Gemmell does try to make her lead make and female characters have some personality, but its compromised with so much "wordiness" that its rubbish.
By the way, wordness is the word I use to authors that are so excited over their knowledge of prose, that they sugar coat every 5 word sentence, in that many old descriptive adjectives (only to be found in a dictionary) and turn each sentence into a meandering ten paragraph description of how they like their coffee.
It's like the author says, "woweeeeee, I'm in print, let me crap onto you, fair reader and bre you senseless about trivia, for 20 pages about the color of the sun at dawn. YAWN. Waste of time and oxygen. Who the heck did this author have sex with to get her scribbles in print?
Again, read one of her books, and you've read them all. Don't waste your money on repetitive books, that are droll, set to an old formula and are timewasting trivia.
Rating:
Summary: sexy with a capital X...
Review: i've never read a book so quickly in my life. i finished it just three days before my wedding...i was so completely enthralled not even my husband-to-be could tear me away. it was beautiful, sexy, intriguing. now that i'm looking for a new read, i'm having an impossible time finding one that i want to consume with as much fervor. oh, i recommend reading this with candles lit, shades drawn, a glass (or three) of wine and only when you have enough time on your hands to get completely lost...
|
