Roche's literary mission to arouse and dissect our disgust sounds great. Unfortunately the writing is not very good and the number of times I had to read nearly identical sentences along the lines of "the nurse came in and opened the metal bin. It was full of my bloody pads. It filled the room with the most wonderful scent of bloody pads" sucked out all of the intrigue and left me with no questions other than "how many pages do I have left before this is over?"

What were they smoking in 2008 that made them hail this as a feminist piece? Roche, in the interview included at the end, agrees that Wetlands is not only novel but manifesto to promote bodily-awareness and the freedom to masturbate among Germany's women (and I think this a noble goal, and I like it!), yet Helen, our narrator, seems to regard all men, including her father, primarily for their sexual potential (fine, maybe interesting) and view most women with derision (less interesting), usually for their pre-occupation with hygiene but sometimes just for having 'flat nipples'. I can't help but feel that soap is kind of a phantasmic enemy that Roche regards as a real oppressive force in need of feminist take-down by way of wit and explicit, lengthy and repetitive description of rubbing her genitals on public toilet seats. I dunno, I'm all for it, but I feel like we had bigger things to worry about back then.

Our deranged, sex-crazed, germophile teenage protagonist is likeable enough, her backstory approaching something intriguing. Some funny moments, mostly near the beginning, before the shock value wears off and you realise that you are going to remain trapped in a claustrophobically boring narrative for the next 200 pages. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to be reminded why good writing matters, because I am now really, really excited to read literally anything that isn't this.

Wetlands

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