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Wetlands (Hardcover)

by Charlotte Roche (Author), Tim Mohr (Translator)
2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.17 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd; UK First Edition edition (5 Feb 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007296703
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007296705
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.8 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,293 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

With her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming habits of the novel's 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Charlotte Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel ("Feuchtgebiete," in German) has sold more than 680,000 copies, and is the biggest selling book on Amazon anywhere in the world. The book is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator's body and mind. It is difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel. Wetlands opens in a hospital room after an intimate shaving accident. It gives a detailed topography of Helen's hemorrhoids, continues into the subject of anal intercourse and only gains momentum from there, eventually reaching avocado pits as objects of female sexual satisfaction and - here is where the debate kicks in - just possibly female empowerment. Clearly the novel has struck a nerve, catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over women's roles and image in society.


From the Inside Flap

Helen Memel lies in the Department of Internal Medicine at Maria Hilf Hospital. While she waits for her divorced parents to come and visit her - who she hopes will finally be reconciled by the side of her hospital bed - she begins to examine those parts of her body usually seen as distinctly 'unladylike'. She lets the orderly, Robin, take photos of those areas her curious gaze can't reach. And, on the side, she tends to her collection of avocado stones - which also happen to provide her with invaluable sexual services ...

Wetlands takes an unflinching, and very funny, look at one of the last remaining taboos of today. Courageous, radical and provocative, Charlotte Roche's novel rebels against hygiene hysteria, the sterile aesthetics of women's magazines and standardized dealings with the female body and its sexuality. This is a wonderfully wild story of a heroine both pleasure-seeking and vulnerable, who voices what others do not even dare to think.

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Customer Reviews

88 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (16)
3 star:
 (17)
2 star:
 (20)
1 star:
 (25)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.6 out of 5 stars (88 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Story of a very damaged young woman, 29 May 2009
By Roman Clodia (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
I read this because I wanted to make up my own mind about the controversy it has generated, but the book is actually very different from what I had expected from all the reviews. Yes, it is gross and completely disgusting in lots of places, to the point where there were pages I had to skim through since they were so stomach-churning.

But at heart this is a story of Helen, an emotionally-damaged eighteen-year old, scarred by her family, sexually-promiscuous but lonely, and screaming her pain through her defiant and rebellious relationship to her own body. Like a seven-year old, she thinks she's being clever and shocking, but what gradually builds up in this short book is not a sense of empathy but of pity.

Charlotte Roche isn't Helen, but she has created a monstrously vivid anti-heroine. I can completely understand the people who have slated this book for its repellent and sometimes nauseating episodes, but I can also understand their necessity in defining who and what Helen is. So not a pleasant book to read, but ultimately a brave and interesting one.
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing's shocking , 3 Mar 2009
By NB (Middlesbrough, UK) - See all my reviews
Ok, so i bought this after reading an interview with the author in the Guardian. I liked the idea of a book that dealt with female sexuality in an honest and funny way. Unfortunately this book was a massive disappointment.

Although graphic in her detail of bodily parts, fluids and functions, Helen, who tells her whole story from her hospital room, bored me after a while. She is one dimensional - immature and desperate to shock - rather like this book. The subplot about her family secrets was flat and predictable, and i was desperate to find something exciting about this, but nothing came.

It would maybe have had more impact as a short story, but over the course of a whole book, it was a chore to read and unsatisfying to finish.
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41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Controversial ?, 28 Jan 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Is this really the bestselling book that Amazon distributes? I find that staggering. I wouldn't say that this book is particularly shocking, it clearly sets out to be (could the title and cover be more obvious?), but in the opinion of this reviewer it is trying too hard, lacked depth and I found myself yawning at the obviousness to try and 'shock' the reader. Perhaps in its original language this book was something of a revelation, but in the UK a drawn out tale of a teenagers behaviour changes and habits following their parents' divorce is hardly ground breaking, and I believe there are better ways of telling that story than the context used here.

Without the 'controversial' content 'Wetlands' would be very short story and a thin book, in many ways comparable to many generic Hollywood blockbuster films that take themselves too seriously. Take away the special effects, stunts and explosions and you are left with very little, it is over very quickly and you are left feeling unfulfilled at the end and desire something with greater substance and originality.

If you must waste three hours of your life reading this, borrow a copy and save your money.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Graphic Feminism or Purposefully Shocking To Sell...Undecided!
Wetlands is told through the eyes of 18 year old Helen Memel from her hospital bed after an accident during a rather intimate shaving incident. Read more
Published 10 days ago by Simon Savidge "savidgeread...

2.0 out of 5 stars hours taken away from me
I bought this book after a conversation with a friend. I suggested an old favourite of mine for her 'Catcher In The Rye', she suggested 'Wetlands' and hyped it up quite a bit so I... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Fiona L. Lewis

4.0 out of 5 stars You'll probably never read a book as vulgar as this in your life...
So make sure you read it!

Okay, the charm about Wetlands is the fact that it is so damn explicit
and shockingly frank about female hygiene (or lack thereof)... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dave the Flav'

5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
This is a very entertaining book. it is meant to show or break this image of perfection that has been created and some may say forced on to women, it is simply meant to highlight... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mars

5.0 out of 5 stars Cringe worthy but fascinating
Having read all the hype in the SUnday Times when this novel was published I was fasinated by it. Some scenes still make me cringe thinking of the things she describes so she has... Read more
Published 1 month ago by S. Holt

1.0 out of 5 stars Superficial and self-indulgent
I started it fll of hope that I was reading a new type of writing. But I found it repetitive, and shllow. Read more
Published 1 month ago by George Elliott

1.0 out of 5 stars Dreary
I wanted to read this book as I saw Charlotte Roche in the film Eden and thought she gave an interesting performance. Read more
Published 2 months ago by TheLibrarian

1.0 out of 5 stars Gag reflex!
This book, to me, was like repeatedly sticking your fingers down your throat.
Almost every page made me feel nauseated; its vile. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Amber Sweet

1.0 out of 5 stars I wouldn't recommend this book
Billed as a taboo-breaking tale that would bring female nooks, crannies, secretions and sexuality into the light of the 21st century, I felt at the end of the book that, quite... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Hatherley

2.0 out of 5 stars Shocking
The reviews prepare you for it. The front cover prepares you for it. But it is still SHOCKING! I've always known I'm a bit of a prude but I thought I was a bit more literary... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Victoria

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