Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I always complete a book once starting it (even one that is thoroughly unenjoyable,) but "Cleaving" proved quite a challenge. It is a failure on every level. The inadequacies begins with the writing. Butchery is an appropriate (if somewhat obvious) metaphor for what the author is doing to her life, but her descriptions, while detailed, are flat and uninspired. There is no magic, no startling descriptions or cunning observations. She simply walks the reader through her literal manipulation of the meat, probably thinking that this will be shocking enough to impress the reader. She never does the heavy lifting to transform that aspect of the text into something more than a (rather boring) technical manual. Her recounting of her marital infidelity is so self-indulgent and unreflective that the fact that she saw fit to publish it in such a raw, unimaginative form is probably the ultimate insult to her benighted husband (who does not appear as a real person in the memoir--merely a doormat with legs). There's something abusive in her literary treatment of him. It's as though she's pathologically incapable of caring about others (including her husband or lover), and her arc culminates in complete acceptance of, and pride in, her lack of empathy. Even more pathetically, while she emotionally abuses her husband and attempts to manipulate her no doubt terrified lover, she is slavishly and compulsively obsessed with winning the approval of the "cool kids" at the butcher shop--it reads as almost a type of personality disorder, but clearly isn't recognized as such by the author. Instead, we're treated to pages and pages of how "sexy" she has become (truly a feat considering that, after being subjected to her insipid musings and navel-gazing for hundreds of pages, the last word I would use to describe this author is "attractive")! The "racy," "boundary-pushing" sex in this book is (1) nearly non-existent, (2) completely unchallenging and unrelated to the themes of the book, and (3) probably a publisher's ploy to drum up curious readers. There are recipes sprinkled throughout the book in a random and distracting way. They have nothing to do with the plot or pacing. I'm not sure an editor ever bothered to do a complete read-through. The most offensive moment of the book occurs during the "world tour of meat" near the end of the book (again completely unrelated to everything that happened before). Ms. Powell describes with complete and offensive thoughtlessness a highly charged sexual incident with truly disturbing racial and imperialist overtones. It's like reading "Passage to India" from Adele Quested's unchallenged and untranscended perspective and is truly upsetting. Later, we are treated to Ms. Powell's reveling in contemplation of her near-rape--an experience which catapults her to new levels of obliviousness. This is one of the most unintentionally depressing books I've ever stumbled across. I hope Ms. Powell gets the help she desperately needs and that next time her therapy will be performed in private.