Boy Parts

If you enjoy Ottessa Moshfegh’s novels you’ll probably love this book too!

Didn't like her and I didn't feel any sympathy for her but I liked this story, liked how it went and how the writing was so much like Irina's personality. For some reason I wanted more from this which sounds like I'm saying there wasn't a lot here or a lot of commentary here, there was. And Irina is just a train wreck happening that you can't look away from. Tanking. Tanking. Tanking and it was fascinating to read.

I could read another 200 pages from this author. I need more from the characters minds, all of them! I am left wondering if it was all a dream or if was all told from the prospective of someone in hospital? So many what if s I guess I will just fill in the gaps lol

The novel Boy Parts is a story that grips the readers attention from the very first beginning. Showing a artist reflecting and creating more of her explicit art. While watching the main character string boys along for the sake of her craft we also see how the artist thinks and uncovering things from her dark past that soon comes to light

I’m not always a fan of books where every single character is unbearable but this book really had me hooked!

So I thought this was going to be a horror book when I picked it up and boy was I wrong. As I was getting more and more into the story, I kept waiting for the scary stuff to come, but it didn’t. I kept on reading because I felt like I knew the woman that this story was about. It reminded me of some of my female artsy friends. Wild and carefree and imaginative, just working on their art and enjoying life. Then the scars are shown and things just start to spiral. The story was cool, and the whole thing was a good read, but I know that I missed a lot of the intellectual stuff that this was meant to represent, but it was still good. Even though it wasn’t for me I liked it.

I rarely abandon a book before the halfway point but this became unreadable for me. To my dismay, this isn’t American Psycho for hot girls as it was bolstered across Goodreads to be. Not even close. Patrick Bateman actually had depth because of the profound awareness of his narcissism, corruption, and imposter syndrome. There was a clever, satirical dichotomy that made him relatable. Conversely, as a protagonist, Irina’s constant hollow pursuit shapes to convince the reader of her validity. This happens particularly at the expense of everyone she comes into contact with. It’s purely mental cotton candy. Predictably, her frumpy best friend is in love with her. How could you not fall deeply in love with her??? Her out of touch mother constantly tears down her “this isn’t just a phase” attire. Even those who dare to admire or critique her art are fodder for her smug “baditude.” She’s so misunderstood… But she watches David Lynch. She wears nondescript YSL handbags and uses La Mer cream while simultaneously maintaining a perfected veneer of aloofness by appearing unkempt to untrained eyes. Her profound knowledge of Harry Potter is unmasked whilst drunk. She casually name drops her acumen of the avant-garde while perpetually and simultaneously detesting her mainstream, pedestrian surroundings. She *gasp* takes pictures of men in compromising positions as a financially mantled way to reclaim her misconceived femininity. Basically, she’s the girl who gets annoyed at the prospect that you understand her. This is all really deep, right? Not so much. Where Bateman’s self-obsessed detachment was ironic, Irina’s is deliberately crafted with no meaningful subtext or dissonance. Now, you could argue that she’s a modern, manufactured protagonist hailing from a post-9/11, pre-collapse, instantly gratifying societal and intrinsically disillusioned landscape. Similar to the egocentric yuppie era that’s currently experiencing a resurgence, there’s potential that could yield a promising delivery and would qualify as depth. Certainly, in a real-life dynamic where someone that looks like Irina is a well run deeper than her initial appearances IS compelling. But as a character, this doesn’t translate because there’s no esoteric motivation to her drive. Even in her most vulnerable moments when I wanted to have compassion for her and empathize, it was fleeting and quickly eradicated. Maybe I would have grown to appreciate her had I finished the book but I just couldn’t. I try to avoid the Irina’s of the world but that’s not to say there’s no living pulse here. There are a lot of people that could identify with her “plight.” The internalized misogynistic, cancel- cultured walking billboards that are multitudinous in current times would find a real voice in Irina’s vapidly overcompensating redundancy. I appreciate the author’s writing style but ultimately this just feels like woke propaganda. Boy Parts is just that. Independently, irrelevant parts that can’t amass a meaningful whole.

I had no expectations besides hearing it was very good on social media. I was tempted to give it 4 stars because it left me wanting a little more resolution, but it gets 5 for me not being able to stop thinking about it. Not for the faint of heart, definitely a little vulgar, but very enjoyable!

Boy Parts is a darkly comic novel about a photographer on a downward spiral, a woman in her late twenties who takes explicit photos of random men she finds in Newcastle. Irina developed her photographic niche at art school in London, but now she’s back in her hometown, handing out her business card to random men who she’d like to take photos of. With a sabbatical from her bar job and the promise of a show at a London gallery, she throws herself headlong into photography, but also the drugs, alcohol, and self destruction which fuel it. But there’s also the new guy in the Tesco near her, and her obsessive best friend with a terrible boyfriend, to deal with, and a lot of broken glass.The hype around Boy Parts made me want to read it, and it was definitely worth it: a book that pushes at the question of why the aesthetic creeps of literature often are men, and specifically men going after women. Irina is a gripping protagonist you’d never want to be friends with (especially not when you see how she treats the people she hangs around with), messed up and not always sure of reality, but doing it all with a care for how it looks, and what photos she could take of people. The way in which she gives her card out to random men to suggest she photographs them is such a great reversal of what is expected, with her barely remembering who these men are when they follow up, and with them often unsure why they said yes.The book can be shocking and graphic, but mostly focuses on Irina’s relationships with other people and her constant spirals and blackouts, integrating in texts and emails and the secret blog of Irina’s best friend (who hasn’t wanted to read about what someone is really thinking about them?) to great effect in showing how people react to her, and how she reads what they say. A lot of the tone and plot can be seen as darkly ridiculous, but there’s a lot of serious stuff lurking underneath (as you’d expect), including a lot about consent and the truth. At the same time, the whole edgy art school vibe (which is foregrounded and mocked and critiqued by Irina even as she falls into its traps) is wonderful, giving the book a real distinctiveness that makes it stand out from a lot of the books it could be compared to.With a horrifically aesthetic antihero in Irina and a gratifyingly Northern setting, Boy Parts is the book for anyone who has ever liked trying to read the edgiest, most shocking books (e.g. my teenage reading obsession with reading things like American Psycho) and now wants that vibe combined with something that pokes fun at modern taboos and issues around gender, consent, sexuality, and control.

I found this book by typing in Irvine Welsh into the search bar of my Kindle Fire and found it situated next to An American Psycho in a list of books similar to. This is a good way to find books.I often wondered, why has nobody written a really good British version of afformentioned American Psycho and here we have it, with an art cultured grass roots twist to boot. The main protaganist is a high functioning Narcissitic with psychopathic tendancies and an illuminating portfolio of work.Lovers of dark fiction will eat this up. Its seriously good. It reads really well, lots of depth and detail into the inner workings of a person dipping in and out of seriously disfunctional episodes of behaviour and thought, Haunted by damaged chaotic thoughts and memories A photography artist based in Newcastle takes us on a journey of realization into her damaged psyche and the externalizing of her inner most fears. Fuelled by drink, drugs, narcissism an odd odd salad or two, will this toxic femme fatale find salvation from the chaos of her mind. I loved this, properly loved it!! Look forward to any more work in the future! Cheers

I don't review books very often, but being a writer myself, I think it is important to leave a review on someone's first book. Because the author will read them.This is a dark, funny, nasty book. Brilliantly written, annoyingly good.

Okay so I found this book from Tik tok, as I've been trying for ages to get back in to reading after stopping for like, the whole of my teenage years and honestly I loved it. I'm usually SUPER picky with books but I cannot fault this one bit, and I'm kind of sad that I finished it in only two days. The story line is in some parts casual, but never boring, and I feel like the story line builds amazingly without you realising until you connect all the dots the more you read through. I didn't expect what happened in the peak of the storyline !! You won't regret reading this book, I'd say this is the book that has got me back in to reading and it could appeal to lots of different people so defo give it a read. Even made me laugh at points.

Absolutely loved this. Couldn't put it down. This book really rips the rug put from under your feet. And reading it as a woman really added another layer to it. Fully recommend.