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Jenny Hval: Girls Against God (2020, Verso Fiction) 4 stars

At once a time-travelling horror story and a fugue-like feminist manifesto, this is a singular, …

anger, sure, but also frustration

3 stars

I really struggled to get through this book despite the fact that it had some resonant parts and beautiful passages. Women. Hatred. Rebelling against god, because god surrounds you and is suffocating. Understanding that you've crafted yourself as something against, but not for. Music as community and lifeblood. But I couldn't get past the editing—it sagged for me in the middle, took me months to finish despite being fairly short, and I ended up getting angry at how hard it was for me to move from page to page. There were bits that were all in the same world, but never felt like they added up. I can't tell if the difficulty came from where I'm at reading/focus-wise, the expectation I had that it would be more linear, or just the strong need for a heavy editor. Probably all three.