I'd dream of a better book if I was Daphne. Its incredible what sells for literature these days. This book is the equivalent of trashy TV-Talkshows but with an overabundance of fancy words. Don't waste your money. Buy it on the street for .25 cents, then maybe you'll get your money's worth. Useless and not even entertaining. You would get more mental stimulation counting your socks on a friday night than reading this book. Daphne, get a new therapist, and write something everyone would enjoy not just your friends.

Ms. Merkin dares to bare her soul and takes on a lot of PC thinking. How is this "anti-woman"? In fact, she is shows us the sort of courage and bravery that makes a good feminist!

Part of the issue revolves around the fact that she openly discusses fetishes and sexual identity issues that the PC feminists wish didn't exist. In their vain attempts to crush her into shame and silence, they reveal themselves to be no better than their twisted twins on the right.

As for Ms. Merkin: You go girl!

Merkin is to be admired for her wit, honesty, and refined ability to soul-search. The best essays are those that concern her life experiences--those focussing on a particular movie or a book are interesting, but not as involving, as her stellar ability to confess and to comprehend what she confesses. Like all very good writers, her honesty hits a nerve, and it was interesting, and saddening to me to see the irritation of a few shocked readers on Amazon. A Freudian would say she'd undone their repressions. But that's often the price of being an honest writer.

What most impressed me about this novel was how believable the characters and situations were, such that it read like an autobiography more than something someone just made up and put together into a novel. Merkin's prose is effective and enchanting.