Nine & A Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Some books are just off the scale, not necessarily better or worse than all the other books you've read before - but so fundamentally different that it doesn't quite compare to anything else. For me this was such a book.
The main way this book is different is its sheer elegance. The story that takes place over two months time is caught in moments; Polaroids casually tossed, one after another into a building pile on a scuffed table. It’s a decadent, voyeuristic experience to have the sexual relationship between the woman and the man unfold in snapshots. Each image slightly askew, altered from the previous one and slowly showing the woman loosing herself, bit by bit yet gaining pleasures unknown.

This book isn’t for the faint of heart or sensitive of mind, but everyone else will like the woman in the story emerge on the other side, both the same and yet slightly altered.

The book is fairly short, just over 100 pages, and like a hard candy it can either be made to last or consumed in a few flavourful bites. Either way enjoy!

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