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Wetlands
 
 

Wetlands (Paperback)

by Charlotte Roche (Author), Tim Mohr (Translator)
2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 225 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd (25 Jun 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007307616
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007307616
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review

'Profoundly unsettling' Rowan Pelling, Daily Mail

'If you ever wondered what you'd be like if you weren't shy, polite, tolerant, modest, sexually repressed, logical and constrained by modern standards of hygiene, this may be the book for you!This is not a beautiful or perfect book, but an enterprising one, and its cumulative effect is admirable!Our bodies mean a lot to us -- even the asshole, about which far too little has been written. Every writer needs to claim a bit of territory, and assholes are there for the grabbing. Boldly, Roche takes them for her own' Guardian

'"Wetlands", in the tradition of Plath's "The Bell Jar", is a remarkable novel about mental illness that has been mistaken for feminist literature' Alice O'Keefe, New Statesman 'The cause of the fuss is the novel's extreme obscenity -- though "obscenity" doesn't quite catch the particular, pungent flavour of the thing. "Grunginess" is nearer the mark' Adam Lively, Sunday Times

'Literary news this week suggests that when it comes to women writing about sex, reviewers are still reacting in the same way as Dr Johnson to his walking dog, surprised that it's being done at all. So hats off to Charlotte Roche, who has managed to give both the "Sunday Times" and the "Guardian" the willies by cheerfully confessing to consuming pornography with her husband and starting her book "Wetlands" with a graphic discussion of hemorrhoids' Lisa Hilton, Spectator

'Maeve Binchy is famous for her unique humour and insight; Cecelia Ahern is popular for her unlikely twists and touches of magic; Charlotte Roche has a different formula for success -- haemorrhoids, hairy armpits and halitosis, mixed together into an unlikely erotic pot-pourri' Irish Independent

'Graphic, brutal scatological glimpse of one young woman's sexual proclivities!Helen celebrates shattering sexual and social taboos in a way others might only dream of' London Lite

'Carrying "Wetlands" around with me over the past few days, I have bumped into quite a few people who imagine, from all the publicity, that it is a steamy sex-romp of the type few of us can resist. But I have had to disappoint them. Steamy it may be, but the steam comes from something less attractive than sex; in a characteristic phrase, Roche describes the smell coming from her bowels as being "like warm pus mixed with diarrhoea and something acidic"' Craig Brown, Spectator

'As the furore surrounding the publication of "Wetlands" has shown, there's a very vocal segment of the population ready to accuse women who embrace pornography of some sort of treachery' The List

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.

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Customer Reviews

90 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (17)
3 star:
 (17)
2 star:
 (21)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
2.6 out of 5 stars (90 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
32 of 36 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
This review is from: Wetlands (Hardcover)
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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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 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Wetlands (Hardcover)
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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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 24 May 2009
By Mr. R. N. Lock "Ricky Lock" (bexley, kent United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Wetlands (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
After hearing all the hype around this book, I found this book sadly disappointing. It seemed to try and shock you for shock sake, rather than be creative with its intention. It took me ages to read it; due to the fact I didn't feel the urge to pick it up and wade my way through it any more. I would like to be more creative in this review, but I am left feeling quite flat. When I read a lot of German people passed out reading this book, maybe it was the "boredom factor" and they actually fell asleep. I am afraid to say - it didn't wet my lands, I was left feeling quite parched.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars The point is....?
I bought this to read on holiday, i now realise this was probably the worst book to casually read at the beach! Read more
Published 8 days ago by Lozza

4.0 out of 5 stars Entirely worthwhile
I agree with all the previous comments about this book being nauseating, stomach churning and shocking, however, I do not agree that it was a chore to read, or that the background... Read more
Published 20 days ago by G. Black

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 2 months ago by Simon Savidge Reads

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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 4 months 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 4 months 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 5 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 5 months ago by Amber Sweet

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