I think that because women are so much more self-perceptive there is a sort of distance from yourself that can form as a result; you’re always checking yourself to see if you’re looking right and acting right and thinking the right thing.

When I first heard word of Alexandra Kleeman’s debut novel, You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, the review came with the urgent recommendation that I should pick up a copy as quickly as possible. I expected that the novel would delve into the array of ways in which a woman’s body is monetized and desired, but, in fact, the book that I read blew apart my expectations. The book’s central character, a young woman whom the author refers to as A, is stagnating in her job, her apartment, and her relationship within an unnamed American city. A’s roommate, B, is obsessed with A and…