I had a hard time reading this book. The book is a memoir badly in need of an editor. Parts of the book were lucid and funny. Other sections were unreadable. The author tried way to hard to witty and clever and it fell flat. The unreadable sections far outweighed the parts worth reading.

Well, that was certainly... something.

In all frankness, it felt very much like reading the screed of a 1980s British academic, who is quite erudite but also monomaniacal about a particular subject, in this case popular culture of primarily English extraction. Whether we're reinterpreting Dickens through the (honestly valid) lens of pornography or skewering various obscure late 20th century BBC comedians, there is a lot to elicit the polite smile that betrays only the vaguest comprehension of what the writer is going on about. No wonder the book leads with chatter of Juggalos, the Little Shop Of Horrors and Mars Attacks before swerving hard into semi-famous Brits by way of Austin Powers: get the more recognizable bits out of the way first so that anyone who's gotten this far is willing to just shrug and turn the pages for the sake of completion, no matter the perishingly narrow appeal of the subject matter near the end.

If I sound somewhat harsh, it's likely because I still don't understand the clown subplot, despite the chapter heading that promised to explain everything. Even more annoyingly, I was getting a distinctly Martin Amis vibe from the entire exercise, and if that's your thing, then please, enjoy. It is not, alas, mine.

Which isn't to say that Please Miss is without its merits. Grace E Lavery's creative autobiography is absorbing, and often surprisingly empathetic. Her struggles as a trans woman coming to terms with her body and what it means to renounce her penis are gripping when presented frankly, as is her continuing engagement with her sexuality. I was less convinced by her attempts to psychoanalyze her upbringing and the people who raised her: there was something oddly glib about the presentation that was at odds with the openly messy expose of everything else about her life. And oh, the palpable desire to impress the reader was just... unnecessary. We get that you're smart, Dr Lavery. But I would much rather hear about what you feel about your personal life journey than I would your learned dissection of The Old Curiosity Shop as Victorian porn, with a side trip through Edward Penishands.

Yeah, I value sincerity over intellectual razzle-dazzle, in large part due to the fact that something truly thoughtful doesn't need all that shyster-adjacent frippery. There's definitely value in this exercise tho, even if parts of it made for slow or even painful going. I guess I'm not a fan of the kind of fabulism that was liberally applied here, which felt a bit like an easy dodge when wanting to vent spleen or avoid acknowledging things best taken to therapy. The honest accounting bits were nice, tho.

Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis by Grace E. Lavery was published February 8 2022 by Seal Press and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781541620650">Bookshop!</a>

This is maybe the most eclectic memoir I've read; I'd characterize this as a mix of memoir, theory/discourse, and academic pop culture criticism/analysis. Having followed Grace for a while on social media, I expected the writing to be too scholarly for me at times and this was definitely true, but there were also sections I really learned from, enjoyed, and was moved by. And it can be really funny too! This is a challenging book, but for those who are looking for something more ambitious than your run of the mill memoir but with more emotion than a subject-focused nonfiction title, this would be a good choice.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

A sometimes delightful, sometimes baffling, yet almost always entertaining ride. It is memoir, literary criticism, parody, & wit. And probably other things I didn’t quite comprehend. I’m not sure this will appeal to all readers, but I picked it up since I follow Grace Lavery on Twitter & enjoy her thoughts there, & I continued to enjoy them in this book.

[What I liked:]

•This book is funny! Sometimes in an absurd way, sometimes in an observationally witty way, & sometimes it’s just plain fun!

•I enjoyed the passages of literary criticism and pop culture commentary that featured largely, particularly the bits about The Old Curiosity Shop & Little Shop Of Horrors. Not necessarily what I was expecting in a memoir, but I enjoyed it.

•There is an ongoing mystery of the clown letters, which does get explained in the final chapter. It created some nice suspense.

•This book has a lot of personality & a lot of heart. There are some sweet & touching moments in among all the fun & brilliance.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•There are several passages in this book that I don’t understand. Which is mainly a me problem, but also at times I got very lost in what was happening & the text wasn’t very forgiving in helping me re-orient.

CW: homophobia & transphobia, sexual assault, substance abuse, misogyny

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

PLEASE MISS is a memoir like few others, for better and for worse. Readers looking for a salacious romp or delightful personal anecdotes will ... well, to be fair, they'll find them in this work, though they'll have to sift through some fantastical wonderings, theoretical musings, and academic discourse. Those looking for an easy-breezy read will be disappointed, as Lavery's clever theorizations and pithy vignettes are steeped in a few decades of academia (which is to say: if you're unlikely to laugh at a joke about Jacques Lacan or place an obscure literary reference, you might feel a bit out of depths in Lavery's waters). For those smartypants who are up for the challenge, though, PLEASE MISS is a genre-bending surrealist dreamscape with cameos from a certain subset of the Internet's favorite players.

Just too out there for me. Could not hold my interest with pop culture references. Did not finish.