A review by serialsnark
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

5.0

4.5/5 You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine is NOT for everyone. It's weird. I went into it knowing it would be weird, but was still surprised at just how weird it is. Kleeman's writing got under my skin with an almost frightening familiarity. Literally, it gave me chills. Since starting her novel and even since finishing, it feels stuck to my person. When I have the time, I WILL be reading it again, because I do not yet feel I have understood all it has hidden. If you have ever struggled through an eating disorder (and I would recommend not reading this book until you are recovered) you may find that you will connect with this novel in ways other people may not be able to. Yes, Kleeman writes brilliantly on our society's destructive take on body image's and consumerism's plight to scratch out our individual identities, but she also manages to simulate the desperate, the nauseating, the seductive yet disgusting feelings conjured up by an eating disorder. It slowly snubs out your own identity, placing you in painful ambivalence about who you actually are. Even without an eating disorder to confuse or erase identity, much of our society tries to find their identities outside of themselves- in money, in jobs, in physical things... and You Too... perfectly describes this process. With almost creepy accuracy (and prose that is plain creepy in itself), her metaphors mirrored large parts of my own story; often I found myself both shivering and nodding at certain sentences or paragraphs. How much of our lives are driven by media-fabricated images? How much of our selves has been programmed? In essence, this novel both thrilled and terrified me. You Too... is not for the faint of heart, but if you're willing to take its strangeness in stride, it's brilliantly written and filled with intellectual metaphors within metaphors.