This book was very campy in the worst possible way. Everything was done in an over the top manner and it just made the book frustrating to read. I did not care about any of the characters in the book due to lack of any sort of character building. I was just frustrated. What seemed like a good premise was just executed poorly. There were a few cool ideas thrown in, such as some interesting technological advances, but it wasn't enough to redeem the book.

I get that it was trying to make the point about some very hard to talk about topics, but it just tried and failed to make me care.

(I was given this book for free in exchange for an honest review) ( )

What a roller coaster ride! A former boyfriend is accused of murdering his girlfriend, a model. It appears that human skin has been used to make a coat, and the boyfriend, now a monk, is having confront his dark childhood. Although this is not a book I would choose for myself, exploring the people involved in the fashion industry and how creepy it could be. I had no idea where this book was going, and that is what kept me reading. ( )

This book is a trip! It's like entering into a bizarre escape room of macabre descriptions, extreme creativity and depravity of human kind. In all of that... there's a mystery.

This is one of the most difficult books I have ever had to review. That's not because I don't think it's really well written... it's because it almost seems to defy description. Usually, what I do with a review is attempt to write a review that will summarize a plot without giving spoilers. I want to give people enough clues that they may be able to decide whether this book might be something they would enjoy reading.

Let me start with the beginning of this book. Someone has managed to send a drugged model staggering out onto a high fashion runway wearing a creation made from a human body... and the description is breathtaking in the most unpleasant way. Mangin has a marvelous way of describing the most visceral scenes. There's great attention to visual detail in the book... and it really helps to immerse the reader in the world.

The short version is that When Brother George AKA Cecil was young.. his girlfriend disappeared. suspicion landed firmly on Cecil's shoulders. Eventually, Cecil ended up in a monastery and that's where he is when a murder is committed. The body that was used to make the suit on the model is no other than that of his girlfriend.

Cecil is sent from the monastery to "put closure" on all the loose ends that seem to torment him. How he's supposed to do that is a great mystery but he begins with returning "home." This is the point at which things in the novel begin to get extremely bizarre.

The fashion world in this book is like some sort of twisted and mutated caricature of the fashion world we have today. It's futuristic and archaic, young girls - little more than children re basically kept captive. They barely eat, they are treated as a bizarre collection of dolls rather than human beings. I felt as though I was reading a demented version of Alice in Wonderland as I was plunged into a macabre, futuristic, extreme, disgusting fashion world.

There were times when things in this book were so absurd that they were almost funny, but the darkness takes away that hint of humor. So you see... this is why I'm struggling to write a review. None of the relationships in the book are healthy... Cecil is probably the sanest but even he has emotionally flat reactions to the depravity that he returns to.

Is this book hard to read? At times it was. Is it worth reading? Abso-freaking-lutely! It's been a long time since I've read something that made amused me in such a twisted way! And it's completely original. I can safely say that I've never read anything like it before. In fact, the only thing I can come up with that might begin to give you a hint of what this is like is that it reminded me of books from the "bizarro" genre... although not quite as removed from reality. ( )

Full review here: http://girlwellread.blogspot.com/2020/06/size-zero-by-abigail-mangin.html. ( )