The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous
November 22nd 2009 05:28
The Bride Stripped Bare isn't a difficult read by any means. Told in "lessons" of 2-3 pages each the story moves along at a cracking pace. Opening with a wife and mother having gone missing and the manuscript discovered by our missing authors mother after her disappearance, the story takes us on a journey into the mind of a newly married 30-something and her sexual awakening.
Told in three sections, The Bride Stripped Bare opens in Marrakesh, on the authors honeymoon. Eager to experience new sights and sounds, she finds most of her honeymoon is spent by the pool as her some what boorish husband prefers to stay indoors and watch TV. During a sandstorm which pushes our bride into the Honeymoon Suite a half overheard conversation sets the scene for domestic mystery and betrayal.
A spanish scriptwriter is the catalyst for the second section of the book, and the teaching of sex to the virgin writer occupies great lurid passages that were rather uncomfortable to read on the train. I'm sure those passages and chapters would make a great how to manual for your average 16-17 year old who is experiencing those first sexual encounters but I found them more clinical than erotic and devoid of any real emotion. A lover betrayed and a love denied see's our heroine off for a gang bang in a hotel room with three strangers. I tried to think of a way to put that were it wasn't like a punch in the throat but that's how it comes out in the story and really, beyond another litany of self-hatred from the heroine it has no basis what is yet to come.
A husband and wife reconciled in the third and final chapter, with bygones being bygones and a husband who has finally figured out how to sexual satisfy his wife results in a pregnancy that see's our finally sexually aware heroine relegated to the position of the Madonna in her husbands eyes. The lack of sex between husband and wife opens old wounds and see's anger and allegations of continued cheating. While the husband is away, our nameless heroine takes off to Spain and one last fling with her now well experienced Spanish lover.
The Bride Stripped Bare is unapologetic in it's in your face language and graphic sexual content. The first time the un-named author swore I didn't blink an eye, however by the time our heroine is having graphic fantasies on her honeymoon about things I won't go into here I was blushing like a 16 year old virgin.
I was discussing this book with a friend of mine when I was reading it and I alternated between the book being more autobiographical than expected - if that's the case no wonder the author chose to remain anonymous - and that it was written by a man due to the fact the sexual content read like a Dear Playboy letter.
The bookending of the book, with the authors characters car being found abandoned at a cliff and the author and her baby son never to be seen again was absolutely redundant in the grand scheme of things. It just wasn't necessary. There is a such a strong narrative in this book that the whole mystery element of "Did she or didn't she jump with Post Partum Depression" detracts from the book and the storyline.
The Bride Stripped Bare is not the sort of book you'd give your Grandmother for Christmas. Actually on a recommendation of who to give this to for Christmas I can't really say.
All in all The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous is a book I have read that while enjoyable in parts just seems to try too hard with the shock tactics. Then again, as the book is purportedly written by a female for a female audience maybe I just missed the point of all the graphic talk of menstruation and giving up of personal power, and seducing the innocent to show how much fun corruption can be.
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