not sure how to feel about this. i’m always here for a character-driven book with not much plot, some of my favourite books fall under that description, but i just wanted a little more from this. the reading experience somehow felt cold and grimy - i guess very 90s?? can’t confirm though as i wasn’t born. enjoyed the writing style though.

Not for the faint of heart. Probably really a 3.5. Not as good as Jesus Saves, but Steinke's writing sucks you in in ways that are both eerie and brutal. She seems to write with the conviction that the surest sign that there must be a God is the fact that there are things we have to call evil in the world.

I read this book when I was in the army, just as I was starting to seriously begin writing, and not very long after my own first ill-fated trip to San Francisco. The book was like a hard shock in my veins; Steinke was the first person in my general age group (give or take, I was born in 1970, not sure of her) who was writing the kind of fiction I wanted to write, or thought I wanted to write. She was restricted by little, passionate in all things, and writing about people that no one else was much interested in.

Uma capa muito linda, algumas observações interessantes e só.

Eu estava realmente disposta a dar três estrelas porque, apesar de não ter me apaixonado pelo livro, adoro narrativas esquisitas como essa. Porém, esse final conseguiu me irritar de tal forma, que vai ficar nas duas estrelinhas mesmo.

Starting to think the 90's we're just grimy in general.....

I used to LOVE this book, back in my 20s, so I pulled it off the shelf and gave it a reread and... it’s not great. It tries to be shocking, there’s sex and drugs and bleaching of hair, but it never hits, never goes anywhere, never really elicits a feeling. Maybe I’m old and jaded now, maybe I used to think this is what life on the edge was... maybe I went and lived and now this book seems trite. I recommend you read this when you are young, because it will mean something. When you’re older, it just seems silly.

Vreemd boek

The premise of this book was interesting but the exception was just so weird

I think that this book was a lazy attempt at something that could be meaningful. I’m not usually this harsh on books that deal with all of the maladies in the life of a woman, but Jesse is just awful to me and I don’t feel that I got hardly anything out of this read. I want to empathize with the characters but they’re too far gone from anything that I could even begin to understand and I think part of that is my upbringing. However, I will say that this novel sets the precedent for so many of the damaged female centered novels of the 21st century. Maybe if I read this again later in my life it would resonate more with me, I’m not sure.

A very vivid portrait of the psychological underworld of desire. Jesse has to deal with her relationship while also navigating through the lives of these people who, much like her, seem to be forever drifting. The novel does a good exploration of the concept of desire and how it drives people to extremes and particular situations, how far are we willing to go in order to not let go of that which we think we love or are just too scared to abandon, even if it harms us. with very descriptive language and a setting that seems to accurately portray the underbelly of lost souls, it is a very short and interesting novel.

2.5/5

i liked this less and less as i read further. it was an interesting read at times (though often quite dull) and the quality of writing offers some gems in terms of metaphors and description- it was almost poetic at points…. but the actual story? not great. character driven stories with little plot should offer stronger characters. it’s as simple as that. the characters felt dreamlike- in the sense that they did not feel real whatsoever, more like uninspired caricatures. some of the dialogue was hilariously unrealistic and i found that it was really hard to envision some of the conversations actually taking place, because they felt so far removed from human interaction. i think in some places this worked well with the book - since jesse after all is lacking real human connection and this is a huge point of the book - but in other places it was tired and shallow and exhibited style over substance. i think the parts that worked best were the scenes exploring jesse and bell’s relationship. some of what jesse said about her relationship to him felt very poignant and raw in regard to performative womanhood. i was really rooting for madison when she was first introduced! i thought we might receive thoughtful insight from the author into lesbian dynamics as opposed to heterosexual dynamics, but her character fell very flat and quite frankly, i found her annoying and regressive.

a bit of a mixed bag but wouldn’t read again, although i have certainly come away with some food for thought.

I never heard of this book until I watched an Ana Wallace Johnson YouTube video. Based on what she had to say about it, I was intrigued. Beneath the neon lights of San Francisco, there’s a dark underbelly of opium, madames, brothels, drug dealing, and murder. This is a highly erotic story that was published at the height of the grunge era. The best way I can describe this book is “dank” and “descriptive” because it took us there. This is not the San Francisco I know; like many major cities in the world, it’s so unrecognizable thanks to time and gentrification. Suicide Blonde by Darcey Steinke is a cult classic like an urban fairytale about a twenty-nine-year-old adrift.

Jesse is desperate to keep her bisexual boyfriend Bell who only seems to keep her around to keep from being identified as gay. He is thinking about an ex-lover named Kevin who was the love of his life. Jesse and Bell’s relationship is practically dead but neither of them wants to move on. Jesse is helping out Madame Pig, a grotesque recluse who keeps mentioning her “daughter” Madison to Jesse. Once Jesse meets Madison, she enters a world of prostitution and sex. To describe this as an odyssey would be accurate because this was quite the journey.

No character stands out as a favorite or someone as the least favorite because this felt like a little bit of a fever dream. I did sympathize with the main character at points because she’s leaving her twenties and coming to terms with her life. As someone who has done that recently, it’s both illuminating and alarming. Thinking about the first 30 years of my life; the relationships (or situationships), the mistakes, the time wasted… it’s eye-opening. While we may not relate in other areas, I got that.

I’ve never taken opium, nor do I intend to but I imagine that reading this book would be like being in a hazed-out opium den. There were times when I barely knew what was going on and it was a bit like a grunge Alice in Wonderland. I enjoyed how descriptive this book was and how real it felt. Steinke undressed this character Jesse in front of us. The only “weak” point is how aimless it feels in some parts. I believe what happening here but there are times when I question why I’m being told something.

There are some triggering parts of this book, particularly the last couple of pages because of a descriptive suicide. This book is moody and melancholy but in an oddly comforting way.