Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body"

As a college student who is not use to reading love novels yet, it took me a while to get into the language; it was almost foreign to me. It was so descriptive; sometimes too much for me, but I was amazed at the way the author could go into detail about anything. I felt like I could have said, "Describe a piece of paper," and had at least 3 full pages of descriptive writing about a piece of paper.

As a critic, the language was marvelous and lustful. It was not vulgar or pornographic, just the language of love expressed with compassion and detail. Everyone should pick up this book and learn how to impress your partner with a supreme language that could only make you feel special when geared toward you.

But when I look at it from a young woman's aspect, the story was so full of emotions and feelings I think everybody goes through, like questioning what you are doing especially when you feel like you have made the same mistake before. Every relationship the main character had was a unique one, but she seemed very certain that this latest one, Louise, was the one. I could actually vision in my head what she looked like, what they looked like together; the word play but a movie in my head.

Writing a review though... There is no better forbidden love story! The plot takes you on a quest of true love that seems impossible to have and right when it is in the main character's grip it is focefully taken away from her. She suffers like all of us have and that's what makes the story so relatable.

What I have learned so far, in every story there has to be something that goes wrong, and in this love story it's cancer. I felt her heartbreak when she discovered that she thought she had to make the "good" decision by leaving her with Elgin so he could take care of her. The logic made sense to me but if I felt the way she did about Louise there is no way I would disappear to make her go through this alone, let alone with the person she supposedly despises.

In a more critical way, the main character is faced with such a diffucult decision that she disappears from Louise, the person she loves, in order to help her. The dialogue going through her head draws the reader in; she is full of doubt, pain, sorrow, longing. The book keeps you on your toes, waiting impatiently to turn to the next page, to see if she will every make a move to chase down the woman she loves and return to her side in this horrible tradgedy that has ruined their chance of love.

I got the impression that the main character was very promiscuous. There were tons of references of previous flings and relationships. I was kind of surprised at how many lesbian relationships she had. I don't know if this is a stupid question, but I kept asking myself, "How does a lesbian know that another woman is a lesbian?" How do you approach that situation because I guess I'm making the assumption that there is an overwhlemingly larger population of heterosexual women then homosexual, but maybe I'm wrong.

Review: You can tell this woman can be characterized as a lover. She writes about mistakes and lessons learned from previous relationships she has held. She's experienced in this field, but still has no idea what she is doing with Louise. Dive into her uncertainty, but yet very certain; the thought process of a lover's heart and brain. This book is intense; everything about it-- the words, the relationships, the situations, the feelings. It sucks you in regardless of if you want to be surrounded by the plot or not; you're helpless because of the luscious language.