You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, Alexandra Kleeman
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, Alexandra Kleeman
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You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
A Novel

Author: Alexandra Kleeman

Narrator: Kelly Pruner

Unabridged: 9 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Harper

Published: 08/25/2015


Synopsis

An intelligent and madly entertaining debut novel reminiscent of The Crying of Lot 49, White Noise, and City of Glass that is at once a missing-person mystery, an exorcism of modern culture, and a wholly singular vision of contemporary womanhood from a terrifying and often funny voice of a new generation.A woman known only by the letter A lives in an unnamed American city with her roommate, B, and boyfriend, C, who wants her to join him on a reality show called That’s My Partner! A eats (or doesn’t) the right things, watches endless amounts of television, often just for the commercials—particularly the recurring cartoon escapades of Kandy Kat, the mascot for an entirely chemical dessert—and models herself on a standard of beauty that only exists in such advertising. She fixates on the fifteen minutes of fame a news-celebrity named Michael has earned after buying up his local Wally Supermarket’s entire, and increasingly ample, supply of veal.Meanwhile B is attempting to make herself a twin of A, who hungers for something to give meaning to her life, something aside from C’s pornography addiction, and becomes indoctrinated by a new religion spread throughout a web of corporate franchises, which moves her closer to the decoys that populate her television world, but no closer to her true nature.

About Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman has written for the New Yorker, Harper's, Paris Review, Zoetrope, Tin House, VOGUE, and n+1. She received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. She was the 2016 winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, and lives in New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Blair on March 11, 2016

You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine begins as a chronicle of the smallness and aimlessness of everyday life, something that might seem very recognisable to many of us. Remaining unnamed for the entire story, our narrator worries about her creepy roommate, B, and the empty relationship she has with her......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on October 19, 2015

This book feels very late '90s/early '00s in its style and its targets. Consumerism, body image, TV and TV commercials, reality shows, cults, corporate mascots, processed food... It feels less like Thomas Pynchon and more like Donnie Darko or Being John Malkovich: that very particular brand of turn-o......more

Goodreads review by Snotchocheez on December 28, 2016

3 stars Oh, this book. I think it will forever render me tongue-tied, but I'm unlikely to forget it anytime soon. I'm in awe of Alexandra Kleeman's brain for conceiving something so bat-shit insane as You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine. I'm also irritated that she fished me in twice to read it, with......more

Goodreads review by David on March 13, 2017

Having read two books in a row that were surrealist by female authors, I’ve decided to write a combined review comparing my reactions to them. You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman and The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips. I will refer to them henceforth as YTCHABLM and TBB.......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on September 11, 2015

A difficult book to rate as although I think the themes and messages within this book are incredibly interesting (body and self-image mainly, but also commentary on contemporary consumerism), I just didn't enjoy reading this dystopian and oh so very peculiar book. I read a LOT on these subject areas......more