Book Review: Wetlands

Charlotte Roche is best known as an MTV-like VJ, well that's what she's known for in Germany (until recently), here in the U.S. she's started to build a growing reputation as a writer, all thanks to her debut novel Wetlands (translated by Tim Mohr). I'd seen mentions of the book here and there, snippets talking about how audience members passed out at readings, how it was a twisted YAish novel, the sort of bad press that helps sell books.

I ignored that stuff, A) because the whole passing out at readings thing is old hat, Chuck's been pulling that stuff for years thanks to his stomach churning short story "Guts" and B) twists and turns and sexing it up isn't a new trend in YA, it's by no means the norm but sexuality in a frank and clear manner has been around in the genre for a while (and is in many ways a good thing in the sense that there is less sugar coating and more responsible dialogue taking place in the real world because of it).

After finishing Wetlands, I'm not so sure I should have ignored the hype. The book has been lauded on how it "attacks conventional views on hygiene, sexuality and the definition of femininity” by Publishers Weekly and a slew of others. Granta said the book "... evokes the voice of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the perversion of J.G. Ballard’s Crash and the feminist agenda of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch." But I think the U.K.'s Daily Mail put it best when they called Wetlands simply "Profoundly unsettling."

So what's all the hub-bub about? In short, Wetlands is the first hand account of an eighteen year old girl who is completely, without question, comfortable with everything (and I mean everything) about her body, in some cases to the point where the reader has to question her stability (I won't go in to details, but let's just say that the World Horror Convention's annual Gross Out Contest winners have nothing on Charlotte Roche). On the other hand, readers are allowed into the fragile, angst ridden psyche of a girl who is unsure of her place in the world and is intent on exploring every facet of every available experience on her topsy-turny journey of discovery. And in an in-your-face fashion, it's an erotically charged tome about love and lust, pain and pleasure and the often fine line between.

What this book isn't is for the faint of heart or the emotionally immature. Roche tackles very adult topics in a very graphic and direct way. There were times that I had to set the book down, and I've had one of my own stories reviewed as,

"... possibly even more disturbing than JA Konrath’s “Thems Good Eats” (in Gratia Placenti, Apex Publications). “Pick” is less over the top and more serious, which lends a sinister and sickening weight to it, perfect for the gross-out hounds, and an unexpected bit of intensity."

Wetlands is not a YA novel, it is an interesting, shocking and at times brilliant debut that might have benefited from a bit more about the narrator's family dynamics (given that the entire idea that her mother had tried to kill herself and the MC's younger brother a number of years back and yet both children still resided with the woman) or her life outside of her sexual relationships (in the sense that the narrator felt flat and little more than a caricature at times, being drawn out as nothing but a hormone driven teenager).

An interesting read, one that rests comfortably on a special inflatable pillow (read the book to find out what I'm talking about) in the murk between highly recommended and run for the hills.