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One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed
 
 
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One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed (Paperback)

by Melissa Parente (Author), Lawrence Venuti (Translator)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Serpent's Tail (26 Aug 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 185242866X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1852428662
  • Product Dimensions: 17 x 12.4 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 94,583 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis

One very hot Italian summer, a schoolgirl sits alone in her bedroom, staring at posters of Marlene Dietrich and listening to classical music. She strips before her mirror, examining her adolescent body pleasurably yet without desire. She writes: 'I want love, diary. I want to feel my heart melt, to see the stalactites of my ice shatter and sink in the river of passion, of beauty.' The narrator searches for love but the men she meets only want sex. With the pain of unrequited love comes the excitement caused by her discovery of the sexual power she has over men (and other women). This diary of a teenage girl's sex life is a work of deceptive innocence. Influenced by Nabokov and Anais Nin, it is both erotic and literary. When the book was first published, it was assumed that this could not be the work of a teenager. In fact it is the first novel of a young writer of great literary talent.
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A sexually curious Cinderella?, 9 Jan 2005
By Penguin Egg (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Told in diary form, this is the story of a girl's growing sexual awareness and search for love. After an unsatisfactory sexual encounter at the age of fourteen, she commits herself to the idea that by giving her body to any man that comes along, he might taste her "rage and bitterness and therefore experience a modicum of tenderness." He might also "fall so deeply in love with [her] passion that he won't be able to do without it." On this flimsy premise that only a self-obsessed teenager would find profound, we follow her from one sexual encounter to another until finally she finds her Prince Charming, who is both tender and in love with her - and, not insignificantly, good in bed.

The story is something of a fairy tale aimed at teenage girls: the narrator tells us that she is ugly, but everyone else in the book comments on her beauty, including passing lorry drivers. There is a happy-ever-after quality to the ending. A Cinderella for sexually curious teenage girls, maybe?

I would not call this book erotic. Despite experiencing group sex, lesbian sex, rough sex, bondage, and viewing homosexual sex, Melissa P. does not dwell on sexual descriptions in the way an erotic writer would. There is a detached air about her sexual descriptions. It is almost as if she were aiming to write a book about her growing sexual awareness in the manner of Yukio Mishima in `Confessions of a Mask.' Yet, the ending is too pat, too much like a fairytale, to be autobiographical. The dwelling on her sexual encounters raises the suspicion that this is as much a sexual fantasy as it is anything else. She falls between two stools. Too much sexual fantasising to be truly autobiographical and not enough vivid detail to be erotic. The two sexy pictures of the author are a tad suspicious, as well.

Despite that, this book is enjoyable. I read it in one sitting - it is only 154 pages. The narrative pulls you along and if the story doesn't convince, it does give you an insight into what goes on in a teenage girl's head.

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Brutal honesty, 24 Aug 2004
By A Customer
Writing as a sixteen year old myself Melissa P. writes with a brutal honesty that most sixteen year old girls use when talking to friends, that most adults do not realise they possess. Obviously most, if not all, do not experience what Melissa P. does in her fictionalized memoir's and at times it is shocking and uncomfortable to read but she writes in such a way that you sympathise with her, in her need to be loved and understood. For most people when they read this they will not be able to belive that this is the work of a sixteen year old, but maybe it should be used as an indication of how different teenager's lives are today and how adult experiences are being sampled at a younger age. This "worldwide erotic bestseller" should definitely be read by people who dismiss teenager's as not being capable to experience real feelings. Definitely a book to be read even if it is to dismiss it as just an erotic one hit wonder or to class it as a wonderful piece of writing to give insight to a teenager's mind.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 13 Sep 2004
By A Customer
Are books like this still scandalous? It was just the sort of 'diary' I thought a fanciful 14- to 16-year-old might concoct to distract themselves from their more boring reality. The writing was immature (though perhaps decent enough for such a young author), striving hard to be profound but missing the target. It was rather a pretentious book in fact. There is little plot to speak of, just a series of sexual encounters and most of these are detailed very briefly. It had too little atmosphere to be erotic. I think its major selling point is that these are the shocking 'true confessions' of a young girl, but it smacked more of the everyday sexual fantasies of the average teenager to me, and averagely written to boot.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting...
This is a fab book, very interesting insight into how a certain type of teenage mind works. It's a much shorter book than I expected it to be! Read more
Published 2 months ago by Velvetfur

2.0 out of 5 stars Tawdry
A cynical marketing ploy fooled a lot of people I think; the writer's sexual fantasies are presented in a detached manner and are tawdry rather than erotic. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Barney McGrew

1.0 out of 5 stars Not hot enough for one-handed reading, not intelligent enough to need a brain
"A girl who loves herself doesn't let her body be violated by any man whatsoever without a specific reason and without any pleasure. Read more
Published 16 months ago by lovingboth

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant read
i enjoyed this book so much that i have read it several times and has become a favourite that i can see myself reading many more times and not ever being bored of it. Read more
Published on 17 May 2006 by kirsty

5.0 out of 5 stars painfully honest emotions
I think this book is difficult to understand unless you've been in a similar place to Melissa - but for me it struck such a deep chord I found it difficult to read. Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2006

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very erotic at all!
I saw a review of this book some weeks ago in one of the 'quality' Sunday papers and thought it sounded interesting. Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars One Hundred Strokes..
The tone of this book echoes the thoughts of many young women during the development of sexual needs and loving partnership. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting ride through sex and perversion
Melissa P's fictionalized diary describes the passage of girl's 2 year coming of age through her desires, fears and sexual exploits. Read more
Published on 12 Sep 2004 by Mr. E. Hanby

5.0 out of 5 stars 100 STARS for a great upcoming writer
I thoroughly enjoyed this very raw and unusual commentary on one young woman's sensuality. I thought it was poignant while at the same time entertaining. Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2004 by Zeena

5.0 out of 5 stars short and sweet
this book had a great deal of hype surrounding it, so to be fair I did have some preconceived ideas about it beforehand. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2004 by rainbowtea

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