About this title: In this finalist for the 2005 National Book Award, an ex-model, now an aging office-cleaner struggling with poor health, looks back upon her rocky life and her friendship with an unusual woman. As Alison Owen transforms herself from teenage runaway to runway walker, her success as a beauty can never efface her feeling of inner ugliness. When her career prospects decline, she is reduced to working as a temp, leading to a fateful crossing of paths with Veronica, an emotionally vibrant but resolutely ugly proofreader who eventually dies of AIDS.
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Description: Very Good. 037572785X Great condition Soft Cover book, clean pages, mild creases to spine, light edge/corner rubs, this book is GREAT! Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Fine. Almost in new condition. Book shows only very slight signs of use. Cover and binding are undamaged and pages show minimal use. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Dust Cover Missing. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Fine. 0375421459 A quality book in like new condition. Pages are clean and not marred by marks. Some minor shelf wear, but the interior is in great condition. read more
"It is rare when I start but don't finish a book, but after 125 pages, enough was enough. Too much of a jaded, raunchy, life sucks perspective at the expense of multi-dimensional character development."
"Everyone told me to read the Gaitskill novel about the escort, so now I *am* readong it. I loved _two girls..._, after all--it even made an Ayn Randoid sympathetic. Courtesy of my friend Kim lending it to me. ** So I guess I avoided reading this book for a while, b/c it was The Mary Gaitskill Book About The Escort Caty Should Read. Actually,it's the Mary Gaitskill Book About The Model, but it does have quite a bit to say about prostitution. Gaitskill has really grown into her style, in painting her character's interior lives. Language, broken or banal or cryptic sentences that would sound imbecilic if written by anyone else, are deftly woven into Gaitskill's prose, until you feel like she's capturing the most ineffable of her character's moods,the ones they themselves can hardly articulate. She seems to actually have something NEW to say about pretty girls' bodies as comododity, about New York city, about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, about music's part in our emotional lives, about a lot of things. Well, we'll see what I say when I'm done."
"I'm a true, dedicated, devoted fan of Mary Gaitskill--I will scout the 'Net for anything with her byline on it. Her words thrill me, her descriptions astound me, her observations leave me breathless. I've read every one of her stories several times. And even though I knew from the set-go that her first novel, Fat and Thin, isn't very good in terms of novel-writing (I actually think it fails), I still wanted to really, really like this book.
Unlike Fat and Thin (which nearly everyone agrees did not work), Veronica has received rave reviews (at least in the US--have not read the Brit ones yet), so I was hopeful and expectant though, to be honest, I wasn't thrilled by the storyline or the concept.
And i was right, because in the end, this novel that-isn't-a-novel (there you go, typical problems of so-called post modernism!) didn't grip me, left me cold, at times bored me, very often irritated me, and left me wondering just where had gone the awesome Mary Gaitskill voice I'd been following for years.
I've come to the conclusion that she's really a short-story writer, not a novelist."
"In 9 of out 10 pictures I hated this book. But in the tenth, I loved it...
This is not at all the book expected based on all the reviews and descriptions I read. I was expecting something brittle, cynical, knowing. Something social and tight. The models, the New York, the Eighties... I put off reading it for a long time because of that.
I don't blame reviewers too much - how could they get across how loopy, how interior, how deep and dense and mesmerizing this is, but --wow, no one even got close.
My only complaint, really, was that it took me so long to read. I had to go slowly, I had to go at her pace. I couldn't just rip through plot, skimming where I needed, racing for the good stuff. Oh no, no vacations here. It wasn't boring or slow, but I had to always pay attention or I'd miss something good.
Okay, just one more complaint. Comparing milkshakes to breast milk. I just can't go with her there."
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