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Loading... Monarchby Candice Wuehle
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) Ghost1y | Jan 28, 2024 |  Honestly one of the weirdest yet oddly entertaining books I have read. I would have rated it higher but I don’t like reading about possible paedophillia/child murder (  ) spiritedstardust | Mar 5, 2023 |
"There is no way to tell the story of a great violence,” writes Candice Wuehle in the succinct introduction to her kaleidoscopic debut novel, MONARCH. The story that follows suggests the opposite is true: there are perhaps too many ways to tell the story of a great violence.... The awful of MONARCH—the great violence at the heart of it—certainly won’t come off easily, but will stick with its readers a long while after they turn the final page. Poet Candice Wuehle's irresistibly weird debut novel Monarch is the kind of book that you want to start reading again immediately after turning the last page — not just to trace the conspiracy at its heart, but to appreciate how its kaleidoscope of beauty pageants, Y2K anxieties, famous dead girls, and deep state machinations synthesizes into an exploration of what makes up a self.... Monarch is ultimately a story about stories.... of true crime narratives that tell us that no one is more perfect than a dead girl, of memory and trauma and consciousness. Jessica's testimony reminds us that "nothing — no memory, impression, emotion, or idea — is ever lost." We can always remember who we are, even when the forces around us demand that we forget. A former child beauty queen–turned–depressive teen grapples with her identity after learning she can’t trust her own memory.... details amid the larger violence inflicted upon her—the loss of self. Patient readers will enjoy some thrills in reaching the end of Jessica’s narrative spiral, which aggressively picks up pace in the end. But these moments feel almost out of place; they are benign vehicles pushing Jessica toward a sense of resolution. Ultimately, this story is a product of memory that is “hers. And hers alone.” A deeply introspective novel with a notable metaphor for reinvention after trauma in the form of a weaponized pageant girl. Child beauty pageants collide with a CIA mind control program in this bonkers debut novel from poet Wuehle (Death Industrial Complex)....Wuehle’s fever dream impressively connects a series of such true crime cases as Lorena Bobbitt’s and the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson with Jessica’s coming of age and her theorizing as to the purpose of her teenage life. Readers sturdy enough to peer into this glittering, multifaceted novel will find weaponized beauty reflected back. DistinctionsNotable Lists
"After waking up with a strange taste in her mouth and mysterious bruises, former child beauty queen Jessica Clink unwittingly begins an investigation into a nefarious deep state underworld. Equipped with the eccentric education of her father, Dr. Clink (a professor of Boredom Studies and the founder of an elite study group on idleness, affect, and crime known as "The Devil's Workshop"), Jessica uncovers a disquieting connection between her former life as a pageant queen and an offshoot of Project MKUltra known as MONARCH. As Jessica moves closer to the truth, she begins to suspect the involvement of everyone around her, including her own mother, Grethe (a former beauty queen turned spokesperson for a Norwegian cryochamber device built to halt the aging process for suburban housewives). With the help of Christine, her black-lipsticked riot grrrl babysitter and confidant, Jessica sets out to take down Project MONARCH. More importantly, she must discover if her first love, fellow teen queen Veronica Marshall, was genuine or yet another deep state implant. Set in the '90s, obsession with the tragedy of the dead girl's body-Calvin Klein heroine chic, JonBenét Ramsey, and Nicole Brown Simpson-is confronted by the radical potential of feminist vengeance"-- No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.06)
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