- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Chatto & Windus (2 July 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0701183667
- ISBN-13: 978-0701183660
- Product Dimensions: 13.8 x 2.8 x 21.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 685,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Chastened: No More Sex in the City
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'[Displays] a melancholy tenderness and candid self-awareness rarely found in confessional writing.' --Observer
Review
'An incredibly honest, at times, squirm-in-your seat read.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The author approaches the premise of this book like an alcoholic who decides to become teetotal for a year and spends most of the time thinking about drinks and visiting bars. Ms Anderson is constantly fighting her urges in order to remain celebate. The chastened life is an alien concept to her as casual sex is her hobby. If the reader understood this from the outset it could have been a good comedy.
I'd have liked to have read about how she moved from chastity to develop a healthy, stable, loving relationship. Instead it was quite depressing how she hung out with a string of men who were unable to commit. I hope for her sake she reads "He's just not that into you" and "How to spot a dangerous man".
I also found it an increasing chore to read because it was direction-less (which the author admits at one point), has lengthy descriptions (mildly interesting) and an overdose of quotes about the topic inserted throughout (although this must have taken effort to research).
I'd have liked to have read about how she moved from chastity to develop a healthy, stable, loving relationship. Instead it was quite depressing how she hung out with a string of men who were unable to commit. I hope for her sake she reads "He's just not that into you" and "How to spot a dangerous man".
I also found it an increasing chore to read because it was direction-less (which the author admits at one point), has lengthy descriptions (mildly interesting) and an overdose of quotes about the topic inserted throughout (although this must have taken effort to research).
Format:Hardcover
Chastened is the story of how 30-odd Observer journalist Hepzibah Anderson gives up sex for a year, in an attempt to instead find love.
All of this sounds like a worthy cause, you might think, or at the very least an interesting change of routine - except that while she may forgo penetrative sex (as she admits, this is a very subjective definition of sex), she fails to give up the painfully toxic relationship that she embarked upon her year of chastity in order to avoid. Descriptions of disappointing encounters with her -frankly creepy sounding- commitment-phobic lover unfortunately make up the bulk of this book. I suppose she deserves some credit for writing about this in such intimate detail, as it's like watching a car crash - you know and she clearly knows that it's doomed- yet time after time she doesn't pull herself away. But this failure to learn from mistakes makes for neither instructive nor particularly interesting reading.
Anderson claims that her year of celibacy left her feeling freer and more sure of what she wanted from a relationship - but this assertion is massively devalued by the fact that she focuses her attention almost exclusively on a succession of indistinguishable, but all slightly older men (she helpfully gives them vomit-worthy nicknames such as "Mr Vermilion" so you can tell them apart), to whom she time after time fails completely in communicating her desires.
The experience of reading Chastened is hardly improved by Ms Anderson's writing, which is simultaneously incredibly flowery and quite directionless, peppered with many a laboured metaphor, over-long passage of description and banal, out-of context quote. By the middle of the book, one gets used to the fact that both the book and her attempts at self-reflection are rapidly going nowhere and it becomes a quick read, with the predictable ending that -literally- on the anniversary of her "vow" she jumps straight into bed with someone she already has doubts about.
However I feel a tiny bit wiser for having read this book, as the sheer boringness of her self-obsessed waffling has inspired me to stop thinking about my own relationships -or lack thereof- and get on with enjoying the more important things in life.
All of this sounds like a worthy cause, you might think, or at the very least an interesting change of routine - except that while she may forgo penetrative sex (as she admits, this is a very subjective definition of sex), she fails to give up the painfully toxic relationship that she embarked upon her year of chastity in order to avoid. Descriptions of disappointing encounters with her -frankly creepy sounding- commitment-phobic lover unfortunately make up the bulk of this book. I suppose she deserves some credit for writing about this in such intimate detail, as it's like watching a car crash - you know and she clearly knows that it's doomed- yet time after time she doesn't pull herself away. But this failure to learn from mistakes makes for neither instructive nor particularly interesting reading.
Anderson claims that her year of celibacy left her feeling freer and more sure of what she wanted from a relationship - but this assertion is massively devalued by the fact that she focuses her attention almost exclusively on a succession of indistinguishable, but all slightly older men (she helpfully gives them vomit-worthy nicknames such as "Mr Vermilion" so you can tell them apart), to whom she time after time fails completely in communicating her desires.
The experience of reading Chastened is hardly improved by Ms Anderson's writing, which is simultaneously incredibly flowery and quite directionless, peppered with many a laboured metaphor, over-long passage of description and banal, out-of context quote. By the middle of the book, one gets used to the fact that both the book and her attempts at self-reflection are rapidly going nowhere and it becomes a quick read, with the predictable ending that -literally- on the anniversary of her "vow" she jumps straight into bed with someone she already has doubts about.
However I feel a tiny bit wiser for having read this book, as the sheer boringness of her self-obsessed waffling has inspired me to stop thinking about my own relationships -or lack thereof- and get on with enjoying the more important things in life.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Well apologies Hepzibah Anderson but this book bored me to tears...I gave up half way through. There is nothing original about this idea and I just found the whole working out of the original premise very dull. I am glad the 'year of no sex' gave Ms Anderson new insights into love and romance but it didn't do much for me...sorry.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
It's a book for 21st century women- and men who want to learn about...
- So honest and true! Anyone who's ever been single will relate and recognise themselves here. A page-turner that really gets you thinking, it's the book for if you can't remember... Read more
Published on 7 July 2009 by Rose Berman
Honest and thought provoking
- An inspiring and compulsively readable account of searching for love by giving up sex for a year. Its meditations on romance, men, golden age Hollywood, pilates and high heels... Read more
Published on 5 July 2009 by Dora Snow
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