Sarah O'Connor

“I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It’s like…am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything?…Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a fucking mark?” (Clark).

After being placed on sabbatical from the bar job she hates, Irina discovers she’s been offered an exhibition in a hip London gallery. A fetish photograph who uses average-looking men as models, Irina expects this could revive her career and just needs the perfect model to help her. When her clingy best-friend Flo points out Eddie from Tesco as a possible candidate, Irina knows she has found the perfect boy to bring her back into the art world.

Boy Parts was all over BookTok a few years ago and I was obsessed with getting my hands on it, so big thanks to Libby for pulling through on that (seriously, download Libby, you’re missing out). Many readers are calling this novel a female American Psycho, but since I haven’t read it, I’ll have to just focus on Boy Parts on its own. After all the hype, I’m happy to report that this book didn’t disappoint. It blew me away!

Irina is a truly awful person. She’s narcissistic, violent, self-absorbed, sociopathic, but God is she compelling. It’s what I say over and over again, the secret to writing a good villain or unreliable narrator is that they have to remain compelling throughout their story. Readers don’t have to root for them or want them to win, but the character has to be engaging enough to keep reader’s attention and Clark does that beautifully here. Irina is a difficult protagonist to follow, she’s honestly the worst and her thoughts and actions are definitely difficult to stomach. But I needed to see what was going to happen with Irina and how things were going to go with Eddie from Tesco. There’s so much detachment from Irina during some of the more violent scenes, it’s chilling!

The writing is well done. The book is written in first person so Clark gives readers an intimate place inside Irina’s head which isn’t a pleasant place to be. I was hooked from the start and didn’t want to stop reading once I started.

Clark plays with power-dynamics and gender roles with Irina, commenting on “penis envy” or if seeing a woman act violent in a way that men are traditionally shown (even in the most horrifying way is, unfortunately, often expected or excused with male characters). It’s an interesting take I don’t think many readers are fully getting, unfortunately when women characters are written or occupying a space male characters have, more criticism against their actions is given then fully understanding what the author is trying to do. I appreciated what Clark was doing though, and had the story not dipped a bit in the very last chapter this probably would have been a 5 star read!

Boy Parts is worth the hype, find yourself a copy and read this book! I can’t wait to see what Clark has in store next!

Publication: July 23 2020
Publisher: Influx Press
Pages: 304 pages (eBook)
Source: Libby
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Gore, LGTBQ+, Contemporary, Literary Fiction
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle.
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention…