Review: Skinnydipping: A Novel by Bethenny Frankel

Let me start this review by outing myself: I am a Bethenney Frankel fan. I think it is very likely she is absolutely wackadoo crazy and I definitely wouldn’t want her as a flat-mate but she is ridiculously entertaining to watch on television. She personifies the paradox of stardom in that at the same time she is both ordinary and extraordinary: funny, rich, successful but that the same time just like us. I like that she’s determined and ambitious and that’s she’s been successful as a woman in arenas that are traditionally dominated by men – television and liquor. However, I have read her previous three books and, while I did enjoy them and have made many of the recipes from The Skinnygirl Dish (I recommend the white bean and spinach soup and the chocolate cake with peanut butter glaze – both delicious and, when combined, provide a perfectly balanced guilt-free dinner and dessert), the typesetting and editing were awful. So, while I tried to approach this book from a place of yes (see what I did there?), my expectations were not very high.

And I was right to be nervous - this book is really terrible. For starters, I think that Skinnydipping needs to assert itself as a novel in the title is in recognition of the fact that not much of this book is fiction. It’s very clearly a fictionalised representation of Bethenney’s own life. Here’s the plot: wannabe actress Faith Brightstone (what a name!) moves to LA after graduation for NYU (like Bethenney did). She moves in with her emotionally distant father (like Bethenney did) and works as an assistant for the wife of an incredibly successful movie director Josh Kameron (really?), helping look after their two daughters (Bethenney worked for Cathy Hilton and helped look after Paris and Nicki). Faith finds a dog and names it Muffin (Bethenney’s dog is called Cookie), appeared in a soft porn film (like Bethenney did) and then decides that she’s not cut out to be an actress, so she moved back to New York (like Bethenney did). You get the picture. For the rest of the plot, please see Bethenney’s life.

I really have no problem with fictionalising true events. Every author draws on some inspiration from their own life for their work. F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalised versions of Zelda in three of his novels. Helen Garner scandalously did the same thing as Bethenney in her book The First Stone. But the difference is (apart from the fact the Fitzgerald and Frankel will never feature in the literary canon alongside each other!) is that those books were entertaining. The fictional worlds, though based at least partially on reality, were real of themselves and the stories that were dramatised had things to say that were worth saying. All Skinnydipping says is that Bethenney either thinks her audience is too dumb to recognise the story as hers if she changes one little detail or thinks that her life is so entertaining that it should be the subject of both non-fiction and fiction. Bethenney, I heart you and will watch your weekly TV show for as long as it is on the air but really, it isn’t.

The other things I hated about the book were the characters, style and structure. For starters, I had to google ‘swamp crotch’ in the first three pages. That is a bad sign (fyi – it’s gross). The LA Bethenney – sorry, the LA Faith – is just an awful person. She’s selfish, self-involved, narcissistic, inconsiderate, caustic and has a fairly severe eating disorder. Then she moves to New York and all of a sudden the eating disorder disappears and is not mentioned again. What? One-dimensional friends vanish and then new ones appear without explanation. There’s a huge rush to cram the full amount of Bethenney’s life into the last 50 pages (She gets pregnant! She comes second in a reality competition show! She gets engaged! She gets a liquor company to sell her Skinnygirl Margaritas, sorry I mean Pink Lemonade Mojitos! She gets a talk show!), resulting in the pacing of the book becoming very uneven. All of these are major flaws that point to the biggest problem for me with this book. I just cannot understand why, with the amount of revenue that her books generate, Bethenney’s publisher cannot hire a decent editor!

I read this book with a fairly good idea of what kind of book it was going to be, so I have no-one to blame but myself. If you’re like me and you can’t control your morbid curiosity, then at least borrow it from the library. If you can, get a hardcover copy so if you feel the need to hurl it at the wall, you won’t cause any lasting damage to the book. I can’t vouch for the wall though.

Skinnydipping: A Novel gets two stars.   

How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I reserved this book at the library on a whim after hearing it recommended by Marieke Hardy on The First Tuesday Book Club and I knew nothing about it. I’m glad I did borrow it – it’s about feminism and I love feminism. I spend a good chunk of my life reading feminist film theory, I’m a member of a feminist group of Ravelry and a lot of the rules I use to deal with things and people in everyday life stems from my identification as a feminist. I was very interested to see how this book explored this much-discussed and very important theme.

How To Be A Woman is part memoir, part feminist treatise. Stories from Moran’s life are told between discussions of topics as diverse as porn and shoes. That sounds kind of serious but it’s not – it’s a really funny book. (Side point: one of the reviews I read on Goodreads said something like “This book is proof that a woman can be funny!” I was like “What? Women can’t be funny? Is that a thing?” I googled it, and yes, it is a thing. Apparently a lot of people think that having breasts and ovaries inhibits the ability of half of the world’s population to crack a joke. FFS – really?) Moran discusses important things like how to tell if something’s sexist – if something happens that you think might be sexist, ask a) would a man be treated the same way and b) is it polite? If the answer is no to either of these questions, then it’s sexism. I spent so much time nodding at her apt observations that I had a sore neck when I finished it (not all women like shoes! YES THAT’S TRUE I REALLY DON’T LIKE SHOES. I wish someone would issue a directive to every marketing manager in Australia explaining that to them) but I didn’t mind – it was worth it. In parts of this book it was like Moran had climbed inside my head and was reading my brain, it was that true to my life.

The thing I find most depressing about How To Be A Woman is that in 2012 there is still a need for a book like this that explains what feminism is and why it is still important. The next time I’m sitting in the public bar of a pub with a female friend with tertiary qualifications, a mortgage and an extensive travel history who says to me “I don’t consider myself a feminist,” I won’t explain that 100 years ago she wouldn’t have been allowed to sit in the public bar or get a mortgage in her name or attend a university of her choice or travel widely without a companion and it’s because of feminism that she can now. I won’t talk about the fact that on average women get paid 30% less than their male colleagues for exactly the same work or that the lowest paid industries in Australia are those which are female-dominated. Instead I’m going to buy her a copy of this book and mail it directly to her house because Moran mounts a much more convincing argument than I have ever been able to.

How To Be A Woman isn’t perfect. The links between the memoir and the treatise sections are sometimes a bit awkward, which creates a slightly jarring effect. It is written in Internet speak, which means there are LOTS OF SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS and chat-room abbreviations that this very out-of-touch blogger had to look up (a bit annoying, TBH). Despite these flaws I really enjoyed reading this book and have paid it the ultimate compliment – I returned the library’s copy and bought my own. The next time the Book Depository have a sale I’m buying a copy for both of my sisters as well because I want everyone I know to read this book. My advice - stop reading this review and go and read this book! It’s excellent.