All Fours
Ratings47
Average rating4
15
Ratings47
Average rating4
The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious, and surprising novel about a woman upending her life
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.
Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.
Reviews with the most likes.
I checked this out from the library twice (had to return it bc of the waitlist) and never made it beyond like chapter 6 because reading it made me feel SUCH secondhand embarrassment that I wanted to claw my eyes out. Which I do feel like is the intended effect and well done to Miranda July for achieving it but when I remembered that I simply did not have to finish reading this I felt SUCH relief.
Alternate title: How I Spent My Midlife Crisis
I read a review that promised this book would change my life. That's a lot to live up to. In the end it did not, but I wasn't looking for my life to be changed. After all, I've always been a driver, not a parker.
I think I'm not the target audience for this book. I enjoyed the character evolution and the dialogue with some of the more challenging relationships (especially with the husband Harris) but I generally felt like characters weren't relatable or believable. The banter is hilarious at times.
It’s a book about coming to terms with who you are and what you want at mid-life, but it’s not a novel that has much to say more than what’s in the character’s mind. There’s no over-arching message or moral or teaching, and for a book ostensibly about sex, none of it is really sexy or sensual. The first part of the book is intriguing—about re-creating space to create your own sense of place—but the book meanders after that. An interesting read, but not necessarily an entertaining one.
