Book Review: The Bitch Goddess Notebook by Martha O'Connor

Overall Rating:

Release Date: 19 April 2006 (UK Edition) Published as The Bitch Posse in the US

Publisher: Orion

Genre: Crossover

Pages: 304

Buy the Book: Amazon, IndieBound, Anywhere books are sold

Set in a small-town high school in Illinois in 1988, three misfit girls join forces with devastating consequences. Rennie, the stunningly attractive straight-A student, finds herself way out of her depth when she embarks on an affair with her married teacher. Cherry builds a shrine to Princess Diana in her bedroom while nursing her hippy mother through her coke-fuelled rages. Amy, who tears up her cheerleader's uniform while her drunken parents concentrate on presenting a façade of perfect family life to the outside world. Together the three girls form the Bitch Goddesses, a take-no-prisoners gang of fierce teenage rebellion. They swear to stick together, whatever life throws at them, until one night at Porter's Point when something so horrific happens it shatters their friendship forever.

Fifteen years on, Rennie is a writer living in New York, struggling to keep her life on track and hiding an erotic obsession. In her Lake Superior show-home, a heavily pregnant Amy is certain that her husband is cheating on her and that she is jinxed by her past. Cherry, a model patient - obedient, co-operative, taking her medication on time - wakes in blind terror every night in an institution, dreaming of four red letters carved on human skin. The Bitch Goddesses may have grown up, but one way or another they must come to terms with a shared past...

I found this book accidentally as I was passing an Oxfam charity shop at the beginning of this year. I was drawn to it because of the cover, which is beautifully done with care. Upon reading the back cover, I knew it would be something I would love. Alternating both between the three main characters in 1988 (first person POV) and their grown selves in 2003 (3rd person POV), the novel reveals the pieces of these girls's history as the pages turn. Structurally the novel is interesting, with the younger characters going on a journey at the same time as their older selves.

The novel effectively uses 3rd person POV to distance us from the adult characters, demonstrating their dysfunctional lives, while using 1st person POV for the teen friends, which gives us a sense of immediacy about their adventure.

The novel is dark, dealing with dark themes, and was right up my ally! Perhaps the end could have been drawn out a little more, but I thought that everything worked super well in building this narrative. When the secret is finally revealed, we expect it—almost sympathize, and this is the mark of an ace novelist.

Can't wait for more from Martha O'Connor. I love her style.

Characters 5/5

Dialogue 4/5

Writing 5/5

Plot 4/5

Style: 5/5

Opening 4/5

Ending 4/5

Voice 4/5

Pace 4/5

“He just stares into nowhere. The two glasses of Pinot Noir or whatever he poured are glaring at me from the table. I stub out my cigarette, pick them up, one in each hand, and throw them into the wall. Ten million shards crash to the floor, and the wine trickles down the wallpaper, red red red.”

“Her eyes pull open and even that hurts. Her body yawns with pain, and sitting at the foot of her bed (bed? What?) is a man with a Winnie-the-Pooh tie and a clipboard and stethoscope around his neck.”