finished this one in about two weeks. I bought it at a second hand bookstore in my town the day I turned 18 because of the naked lady on the cover, and I wanted to be a little naughty lol. I didn't expect to fall in love with it. I love the way Darcey writes, I've always loved when books are written in an abnormal way. I would say she jumps around a lot, and sometimes I wished that she would have stayed with some plot lines a lot longer, rather than jumping to the next so fast.
I feel like this could have been a much longer, or at least a pilot book of a series. I feel like the ending was more of a climax rather than an ending. I want to know more about Jesse and how Bell's death might effect her future and what she decides to do about Pig's situation. I also think she skipped all of that way too fast! We are left not knowing what actually happened between Pig and her "daughter." We were told so many different versions. Who is to know which was true? I would have also liked to know how Jesse met Pig to begin with and what Pig's life was like.
I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential with 'Suicide Blonde.' I know that it was supposed to be an edgy book that doesn't go into much detail, and is left feeling like a mystery, but I feel like that wasn't the right approach. Darcey did a great job with characterization, but there was no character development with anyone. Everyone just stayed the same. It was a terribly unsatisfying ending. I saw it coming, not in a bad way, just a looming way, which did keep me hooked. Finally meeting Kevin was satisfactory, but that was the only part that left me feeling okay.
All in all, i loved 'Suicide Blonde' and will be reading more Darcey Steinke books in the future. I think she is a lovely writer. I just wish we got more of Jesse's story. I fell in love with her, and wanted to watch her become successful and happy. But, oh

This is the type of book to read along side some depressing music when you really feel like wallowing. There isn't a whole lot of depth. I didn't find it particularly scandalous, just overtly vulgar. I began to get irritated because imagery began to get redundant which is disappointing in a book under 200 pages.

Read it so you can say you did and then we'll talk about it. It's the only way to read Darcey Steinke's novel that makes you see "wine drunk" and young adulthood in a new way.

What's the point of it? I don't know, you tell me.

3.5
VERY nineties - grimy, grungy, heroine-y - and also in the style of the writing, a slight remove? a coolness? great writing, but sometimes felt like a little bit of a slog to get through. would read more by Steinke though.

A book full of similes; all ambience, and very little substance. For the most part, I thought this book was about nothing and was just a collection of descriptions. After a while, I realized that the descriptions were stories of the various and bizarre encounters that many confused and unhappy young women experience during their "misspent youth" phase (roughly, their 20s), and that the descriptions were meant to seem 'edgy'. I think the label 'sexual odyssey' is ill-suited for this book, because it implies some sort of empowerment. The protagonist is thoroughly an archetypal maiden - vulnerable and unawakened, and later irresponsible and drawn to dangerous situations and abusive men. She has very few original thoughts and seems to be swept along with the current of what happens around her. The descriptions of San Francisco are negative and cliched yet somehow accurate. I think one's reception of this book probably greatly depends on the stage in life at which they read it. There may have been a point where I would've received this book with awe or identification. Right now, however, my response is along the lines of "been there, bought the t-shirt, don't wear it", or "I can relate, but don't necessarily want to admit it, and you could've said it better".

I don’t often leave reviews, but this book was so astonishingly bad that I need to air my thoughts. It’s written in a way that in my post-read stupor I can only describe as pretentious nonsense. Like if a caricature of Morrissey decided to write a book.

I bought this on the basis that it had a big sticker on it that said “the feminist cult classic”. Now, I’m not sure what about this book is supposed to lean into or anywhere near feminism at all. There is homophobia and biphobia spread thinly throughout nearly every chapter of this book, incredibly grossly written “sex scenes” if that’s what you want to call them (I don’t) and not one likeable character throughout.

I’ve seen so many people describe this book as erotic and I’m genuinely concerned for those people, because unless you find the idea of your friend setting you up to be raped by a stranger or watching your friend violently fist a man until he howls in pain erotic then you must be reading a different book.

All in all, this book was… bullshit. It was bullshit.

At times I thought the protagonist concieted. But I think this was the point. The way she drifts through other's lives, has a taste, and ultimately leaves, to me emphasises that she will never be those people. Be it a privilege or a curse; as one of the characters says at the end, she does not know where others end and she begins.

The author writes beautifully. But the read remains melancholic and nihilistic. Despite this this I enjoyed the musings of the protagonist and psychoanalysis of those around her. The character development really centers on her realising the root of others insecurities and thus her own.

I don't think the author ever intended for the protagonist to be good. But she also seems to have a lot of trauma. Similarly to those around her. Hence the abrupt passages detailing experiences, triggered by seemingly inconsequential acts ie. Vacuuming. All the characters are flawed and dislikable.

2.7

The prose is wonderful, but I wish there was more of a plot to the story. There were enough elements to create a solid intrigue but they fail to coalesce. Narrative bits and pieces did not hang, they drifted. Although the story aims to be aimless, I feel that Steinke's literary talent was somewhat spoilt by trying to fit to a postmodernist vibe. I would have loved to follow the characters' deambulations more tightly. It would have made this novel really unique. Unfortunately, the characters lack flesh. They are evasive, at some point they get dissolved in the protagonist's rambling thoughts.

But let me stress again that the writing is spectacular. Almost a synesthetic experience. Steinke cultivates the art of metaphor with craft. It really touched me.

"Desire has two speeds: quick match flames, unpredictable as a wild bird stuck in a house, and slow-building long-term desires - a walnut kitchen table, hand-thrown mugs, the steam of the coffee wisping around the lip and a sleepy-looking man across from me with eyes the color of green grapes and long-fingered hands like a pianist's."

"I know the girl is right because the snake is in me, knotted around my intestines, hanging off my ribs, snuggled like a lover around my black heart. 'I love you,' I said, addressing the snake, Madison, Bell, Kevin, Pig, my mother, my past lives and the new lover speeding toward me this very moment."

Madam Pig quotes:

"When you love a woman, you love yourself, and it's terrible really, how it seems perfectly possible to swallow the other. With a man you want to join, you want your ribs to connect like handcuffs. But with a woman if you swallow, she becomes you."

"'After so many broken hearts, the really bloody kind - I've decided it's better to rely on memories. I sift mine, refine them, till they are like jewels in a black velvet bag'.
I pulled away from her. 'That makes them lies'."

I was also intrigued by the female gaze that pierced throughout the book. Jesse, the protagonist, has a very voyeuristic tendency - she just happens to randomly follow people for some reason (her infidel bisexual boyfriend, the mysterious and sadistic Madison, couples having sex in hidden places, eventually her boyfriend's first male sweetheart with whom he is still infatuated). Jesse always wonders where people are going, what they are thinking, what is their story, in a semi-realistic semi-fantasmagorical kind of way: is the grass greener on the other side, or are other people as miserable and grotesque as they seem? What do others have that I lack? What will happen if I follow them like a disturbing chameleon? How can I become the person I want to be - and who is this person? Although Jesse may often seem devoid of sentimentality, I found her reflections on the frustration of being a woman in a very sexual, violent and senseless world quite relatable.

"My life fans out like a string of paper dolls. I am malleable, chameleonlike. Each life eats the last until I'm a Russian doll, containing ten women of decreasing size."

"I saw myself in his sunglasses, transparent, held together only by his gaze."

"The problem with being a modern woman, I thought, as the front door swung wide, is that you have to pretend to be stronger than you are."

Steinke also makes a kind of psychological commentary about the patterns we are stuck in because of our family history. Childhood traumas trap and haunt the present, they viscerally dictate our sexual and romantic behaviors. Are we determined to become like our parents? What is the point to strive trying to do otherwise?

All in all, this book is stubborn. It is driven by obsessions. With love, with death, with desire, with the past. These obsessions are beautifully tinted in many colors throughout the book. I just wish that they would fuse and explode in a more coherent storyline.

Steinke's writing reminds me of a more accessible Kathy Acker. It's like an Eyes Wide Shut-type surreal fantasy — overtly sexual, dark, obscure, largely pointless. If you don't like to read books that make you feel uncomfortable, you won't enjoy it. But I liked Suicide Blonde, and appreciated Steinke's commentary on human nature. Steinke writes beautiful, and occasionally I would find sentences or passages that I absolutely loved and wanted to read over and over.
Interesting enough, I didn't particularly like the heroine, Jesse, but I rooted for her. Maybe it was just that she reminded me a bit of myself; through the novel, she tries to get to that pinnacle of "modern feminist woman" but gets lost by her own personal failures and apathy. The characters in Suicide Blonde are obnoxious, sadistic, bizarre, and hedonistic. In other words, they are like most people.
My one major dislike was that the book largely seems to be trying to to somewhere, but never quite gets there. The book doesn't end abruptly, but I did get the feeling that the book wasn't over when it had ended. The book's very Nihilistic, there really is not much of a point to it. Overall, it's a fast read (it took me a day), and if you're paying attention, you can get a lot out of it.

upon having *just*, moments ago, finished this book, on a personal level i don't believe this book was written with the intention of showing the reader a profound meaning behind the intricacies of life. suicide blonde screamed to me, at first, the same tale of many novels i've read before, a woman who's life is characterised by drugs, sex work, mental illness, unstable relationships, and i've found many of those tales have left me with the same feeling. an emptiness of emotion. as many other individuals when reviewing this book have mentioned, it's not an easy book to rate. i found suicide blonde to be uniquely written by steinke in the manner that each character appears to possess the same emptiness of being, manifesting in different forms. the technical being of this book within the description also doesn't have a sense of profoundness to it, but i don't think that was a necessary element for this novel. i found the description poetical but stark against the horrific scenes depicted. it would be easy to read in between the lines of this novel, but i don't believe there's any deeper meaning to the words than what is read. this book is intimate, i truly felt within the mind of jesse while reading. i rated this book three stars as i don't feel it will necessarily remain a significant read to me, it was enjoyable but not a book i see myself coming back to as a markedly important novel in the ways it has made me feel or think.

ALSO i want to mention a massive trigger warning for this book of sexual abuse/rape and substance abuse.

A dark, sad, funny meandering down a crumbling street in the 90s.