Writing in the most comfortable, intimate style July has once again created a marvelous character, full of angst, mixed messages, stifled desires -- a real person in other words. Breathtakingly vivid in all its settings the book is filled with sharp observations, a bevy of fascinating women -- and one astonishing boy-man. This is a novel that lives on after you have finished it, one to be cherished, read again and again. I could not put it down. It is one spectacular read.

Brutally, grotesquely honest at times, about topics that made me physically uncomfortable, I read portions of this book through my fingers like someone watching a scary movie. The stark honesty, and the laugh-out-loud hilarity of this story had me stunned, re-reading the same passage more than once because I couldn't believe my own eyes. Brilliantly, astutely observant and insightful, this book was a wild ride. I loved it.

First of all, the they them pronoun for her child I found incredibly annoying ; at first confusing then just annoying and unnecessary and then the overindulgent and honestly Ludacris multiple orgasm moments she described dripping with excessive neurotic impossibly annoying scenarios and neurosis ….come on woman get a grip SNAP OUT OF YOURSELF… driving across country. This is your coming of age moment ? It screamed, annoying, self obsessed, indulgent, artsy fartsy put a mirror between my legs and let me adore my vagina in a group session in Los Angeles or Echo Park gag. But otherwise thoroughly enjoyable.

I just finished and my immediate and final reaction was “WOW.” There were parts of this ride that seemed ridiculous and uncomfortable (TMI!). I love that this book is anything but predictable, there is no tried and true (and as such, tedious) formula here. This book is a free fall, zero to sixty love song and prayer to aging womanhood that I am totally relating to as a 56yr old woman. I has me celebrating that all of those gender-related norms and expectations that have chaffed me since childhood are finally in the rear view mirror (f’you and good riddance, lol). This book stuns and celebrates that, for the first time in life, menopause frees us to simply live and prosper beyond gender, as the legitimate and valuable and gloriously imperfect creatures we are. Borderline exceptional! I can’t wait to see what she writes next!!!

This book was a suggestion to me by another popular book store company based on my past book purchases. I purchased this book on Kindle for my vacation read. Being 48 and a mom of three, I thought I might be able to relate to the main character and the description was interesting, but I certainly can not relate to this character. Initially, I was put off by the raunchy sexual commentary. I did not find it sexy, I found it gross. I found this main character to be incredibly frivolous and selfish, not to mention a bit idiotic. She made bad decision after bad decision and I just could not understand the point. I just really found myself disgusted with her and could not finish the book. I regret the purchase.

This book was well written and it made me think deeply, which in my opinion are defining features of a really good book! But, as a 58 year-old mother of two who gave up a career to stay home with my now successful kids (relationship and career-wise), I’m sensitive to the idea of prioritizing my own self discovery when a child is involved. It would make my kids pretty insecure if I was still groping for adolescent experiences at 45 years old. Her kid was definitely secondary to her willful and frenzied attempt to find out more about her own sexuality. I get it, it’s a time of hormonal change and there’s a natural desperation to relive all the experiences you never had or may never have again. (Your eggs ARE dying, after all…). I’m glad she figures out her sex stuff, though, that’s so so important. But at the end of the book, not much mention of how her child is doing? Were they/them okay and thriving? I certainly hope the corners were all working out. So I took a star to give to her little kid. Fly to the moon.

Miranda July at her best! This is funny, raw, and hard to put down. She narrates the audiobook version so well and it was a joy to listen to. Highly recommend. An important and unique point of view.

The best thing about reading Miranda July's books is that she gives you a sense that it is perfectly okay to be you, as you are. This book was a bit intense at times for me as the protagonist experiences some heavy preoccupation mentally and the writer takes you right along with her. But it was relatable as are the self reflections she has that help her get through. It is a book about trauma and transitions and it explores a lot of themes that in the past were taboo. It is so refreshing to read a book that acknowledges the struggle of going through menopause candidly and follows a woman experiencing those struggles compassionately. One of my favourite parts of the book was spending some time studying the cover art after finishing the read. It's really a beautiful experience to see so much intelligence and beauty worked into the cover, and how poignantly it expresses the message of the story.

Miranda July, con All Fours, conferma la sua capacità unica di catturare le complessità della vita e delle emozioni umane. La scrittura è incisiva, a tratti surreale, e sempre profondamente umana. July riesce a bilanciare momenti di umorismo con riflessioni profonde, creando un’esperienza di lettura che coinvolge e fa riflettere. Un romanzo che colpisce per la sua originalità e che consiglio a chi cerca una lettura capace di sorprendere e lasciare il segno. Perfetto per chi ama storie che esplorano la complessità della vita moderna senza compromessi

Das Buch hat für viel Kontroverse gesorgt, aber ich habe es geliebt. Es ist unterhaltsam und ehrlich (auch wenn es fiktiv ist) und beschreibt Gedanken und Gefühle vom Muttersein und weiblichen Älterwerden, die gesellschaftlich immer noch tabuisiert sind. Sehr leichtfüssig geschrieben, ich habe es ruckzuck durchgelesen.

One of the most brilliant books I have read for years. I finished it and started reading it over again at the beginning, something I’ve never done before. It resonates hugely with me in its depiction of desire, sex, marriage. Somehow, and this possibly sounds crazy, it occupies the niche overlap between The Baron in the Trees by Calvino, Plath’s The Bell Jar and somehow in its focus on the inner space of body in a room Kafka’s Metamorphosis. It is also immensely laugh-out-loud funny. The narrator is immensely engaging (at least, I find her so). She starts and immediately abandons a roadtrip across the USA, only getting as far as the suburbs of the city, LA, in which she lives, ensconces herself in a motel room which she spends all her money on doing up to a level of luxe opulence and which she uses as a place in which she feels she can have sex with a man she meets and falls deeply in love with (if she is in love with him - I feel she is). The descriptions of them together in the motel room are the most brilliant writing I have read about sexual desire for years, rich, funny, compelling, sexy, comic, strange and ironic. Sex is never just about sex and she explores this superbly, the way other presences, people, memories flood in unstoppably. And I found it deeply romantic because underneath it all there is a sense of the love she feels and is chasing and refracting for those closest to her, particularly her child. I like novels where decisions which seem entirely normal and reasonable at the time work cumulatively to take us into the strangest, least familiar places, so you look back and wonder How on earth did I get here? This is that kind of novel where the familiar is the portal to the strange. It’s been marketed and reviewed as a novel about the menopause or peri-menopause, but for me it is much, much more than this. By the end it is asking the biggest questions, how to live, how we love, how can we survive the compromised realities we are embedded in, what life is ‘for’. But actually it’s just the most superb, funniest novel about a woman living in the fictive space she has created - that motel room - where she can achieve insights into her sexuality and her desire for sex which are unavailable in the normalised reality outside the room.

Een echt boek voor dit seizoen