Wetlands: A Novel

By Charlotte Roche

A sexual, scatological, international sensation: “A cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world” (Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times).
 
In the tradition of The Sexual Life of Catherine M. and Melissa P.’s 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, Charlotte Roche’s debut novel—which sold more than a million copies in Germany alone—exposes the double bind of female sexuality, delivering a compulsively readable and fearlessly intimate manifesto on sex, hygiene, and the repercussions of family trauma.
 
Helen Memel is an outspoken eighteen-year-old, whose childlike stubbornness is offset by a precocious sexual confidence. From a hospital bed, where she’s recovering from an operation and lamenting her parents’ divorce, Helen ruminates on her past sexual and physical adventures in “a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct—both physical and psychological—of Helen’s body and mind” (The New York Times).
 
Punky alienated teenager, young woman reclaiming her body from the tyranny of repressive hygiene (women mustn’t smell, excrete, desire), bratty smartass, lonely daughter, shock merchant, and pleasure seeker—Helen is all of these things and more, and her frequent attempts to assert her maturity ultimately prove just how fragile, confused, and young she truly is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9780802199928

Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Roche was born in 1978 in High Wycombe, but was brought up and lives in Germany. She has been a highly respected presenter on the German equivalent of MTV.

Book preview

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had hemorrhoids. For many, many years I thought I couldn’t tell anyone. After all, only grandfathers get hemorrhoids. I always thought they were very unladylike. I’ve been to Dr. Fiddel, my proctolo-gist, about them so many times. But he always said to leave them there as long as they didn’t hurt. And they didn’t. They just itched. And for that he gave me a zinc salve.

For exterior itching, you squeeze a hazelnut-sized dollop from the tube onto your finger with the shortest nail and rub it onto your rosette. The tube’s also got a pointed attachment with lots of holes in it that allows you to shove it up your ass and squeeze salve out to quell the itchiness inside.

Before I had the salve I would scratch at my butthole in my sleep so much that I’d wake up in the morning with a brown stain in my underwear the size of the top of a cork. That’s how much it itched, and that’s how deep I’d stick my finger in. So yes, I’d say it’s very unladylike.

My hemorrhoids look strange. Over the years they’ve worked their way farther and farther out. All around the rosette now there are cloud-shaped lobes of skin that almost look like the arms of a sea anemone. Dr. Fiddel calls it cauliflower.

He says removing it would be strictly an aesthetic move. He’ll only take it off if someone is really burdened by it. A good reason for removing it would be if my lover didn’t like it, or if the cauliflower gave me anxiety during sex. But I’d never admit that.

If somebody loves me or is even just hot for me, something like the cauliflower shouldn’t make a difference. And anyway, I’ve had very successful anal sex for many years—from the age of fifteen up to now, at eighteen—despite the ever-expanding cauliflower. By very successful I mean that I can come with just a cock up my ass, not being touched anywhere else. Yep, I’m proud of that.

It’s also a good way to test whether someone is serious about me. During one of the first few times I have sex with somebody new, I get us into my favorite position: doggy-style, me on all fours with my face down, him behind me with his tongue in my pussy and his nose in my ass. He’s got to work his way in there, because the hole is covered with the vegetable. I call this position stuff your face, and so far nobody has complained.

When you’ve got something like that on an organ that’s so important for sex (is the bum even an organ?), you have to train yourself to relax. This in turn helps enable you to let yourself go and loosen up during, for instance, anal sex.

And since the ass is obviously part of sex for me, it’s also subject to the modern shaving regime, along with my pussy, my legs, my underarms, the upper lip, both big toes, and the top of my feet as well. Of course, the upper lip doesn’t get shaved but rather plucked, because we all know you’ll develop a mustache if you shave it. As a girl you don’t want that. I used to be happy enough without all the shaving, but then I started with that crap and now I can’t quit.

Back to shaving my ass. Unlike other people, I know exactly what my butthole looks like. I look at it every day in the bathroom. Standing with my bum facing the mirror, legs spread, my hands holding my ass cheeks apart, and my head practically on the floor, I look back between my legs. I shave my ass exactly the same way. Except that I have to let one cheek go in order to hold the razor. The wet blade is put against the cauliflower and then pulled bravely in a straight line outward from the center. Right on out to the middle of the cheek, occasionally leaving behind a stray hair. Since I’m always conflicted about the idea of shaving, I always rush it and end up pressing too hard. Which is exactly how I caused the anal lesion that’s the reason I’m lying here in the hospital now. Blame it all on lady-shaving. Feel like Venus. Be a goddess.

Perhaps not everyone knows what an anal lesion is. It’s a hairline rip or cut in the skin of your rosette. And if this small open wound gets infected as well—which down there is highly likely—then it hurts like hell. Like with me right now. Turns out your butthole is always in motion. When you talk, laugh, cough, walk, sleep, and, above all else, when you go to the bathroom. But I only realized this once it started to hurt.

The swollen hemorrhoids are also pushing with all their strength against the razor wound, ripping the lesion open even farther and causing the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. By far. In second place is the pain I felt run down my spine—ratatatatat—the time my father accidentally slammed the hatchback door of our car on my back. The third worst pain I’ve ever felt was when I ripped out my nipple ring taking off a sweater. That’s why my right nipple looks like a snake’s tongue now.

Back to my bum. In excruciating pain I made my way from school to the hospital and showed my cut to every doctor. Immediately I got a bed in the proctology unit—or do you call it the internal-medicine unit? Internal medicine sounds better than specifying ass unit. Don’t want to make other people envious. Maybe we can just generalize with internal medicine. I’ll ask about it later, when the pain is gone. Anyway, now I’m not allowed to move. I just lie here in the fetal position. With my skirt hiked up and my underpants pulled down, ass toward the door. That way anyone who enters the room immediately knows what the story is. It must look really infected. Everyone who comes in says, Ooh.

And they talk about pus and an engorged blister that’s hanging out of the wound on my butthole. I picture the blister like the skin on the neck of one of those tropical birds that puffs its throat out when trying to mate. A shimmering, inflated, red-blue sac. The next proctologist who comes in says curtly, Hello, the name is Dr. Notz.

Then he jams something up my asshole. The pain bores its way up my spine and into my brain. I nearly pass out. After a few seconds of pain I feel a wet squishiness and cry out, Ow! Give me some warning. What the hell was that?

His response: My thumb. You’ll have to excuse me, but with that big blister there I couldn’t see anything.

What a way to introduce yourself.

And now? What do you see?

We’ve got to operate immediately. Have you eaten anything today?

How could I with this pain?

Good. General anesthesia then. It’s better given the situation.

I’m happy, too. I don’t want to be conscious for something like this.

What exactly are you going to do during the operation?

The conversation is already straining me. It’s tough to concentrate on anything but the pain.

We’ll make a wedge-shaped incision to cut out the infected tissue.

I can’t really picture that—wedge-shaped? Can you draw a picture for me?

Apparently the esteemed Dr. Notz hasn’t often been asked by patients to sketch a diagram right before an operation. He wants to leave, glances at the door, stifles a sigh.

Then he pulls a silver pen out of his chest pocket. It looks heavy. Expensive. He looks around for a piece of paper to draw on. I can’t help him and hope he doesn’t expect me to. Any movement hurts. I close my eyes. There’s rustling and I hear him ripping a piece of paper out of something. I have to open my eyes—I’m anxious to see the drawing. He holds the piece of paper in his palm and scribbles with the pen. Then he presents his creation. I read: savoy cabbage in cream sauce. No way. He’s ripped the paper out of the hospital menu. I turn the paper around. He’s drawn a circle. I figure it’s supposed to be my butthole. And out of the circle a triangular wedge has been cut, as if someone has made off with a piece of cake.

Aha, got it. Thanks, Dr. Notz. Ever thought about putting all that talent into a career as an artist? The sketch doesn’t help me at all. Though I’m still no better informed, I don’t ask any more questions. He isn’t interested in helping enlighten me.

Surely you could cut out the cauliflower with just a little flick of the wrist?

It’ll be done.

He walks out, leaving me lying in the puddle of water from the blister. I’m alone. And worried about the operation. I think of general anesthesia as something dangerous, as if every second patient never wakes up. I feel courageous for going ahead with it. The anesthesiologist comes in next.

The sandman. He pulls up a low stool and sits down with his face right in front of mine. He speaks softly and has a lot more compassion for my situation than Dr. Notz. He asks how old I am. If I were under eighteen there would have to be a legal guardian here. But I’m not. I tell him I’ve come of legal age this year. He looks incredulously into my eyes. I know. Nobody ever believes it; I look younger. I know this drill. I put on my serious you-can-trust-me face and lock eyes with him. His gaze changes. He believes me. On with the discussion.

He explains how the anesthesia works. I’ll count and then just fall asleep at some point without even noticing. He’ll sit by my head throughout the operation, monitor my breathing, and check that the anesthesia is agreeing with me. Aha. So this sitting-too-close-to-my-face thing is an occupational hazard. Most people don’t notice anyway—they’re knocked out. And he’s probably supposed to be as unobtrusive as possible and hunker down close to the patient’s head so as not to disturb the real doctors. Poor guy. The standard position while practicing his trade? Squatting.

He’s brought a contract that I’m supposed to sign. It says the operation could result in incontinence. I ask how it could affect my pissing. He grins and says this refers to anal incontinence. Never heard of it. But suddenly I realize what this means: You mean I might lose control of my sphincter muscles and then I could just crap myself anytime and anyplace and would need a diaper and stink all the time?

The sandman: Yes, but that rarely happens. Sign here, please.

I sign it. What else am I supposed to do? If that’s what it takes to have the surgery. I can’t exactly go home and operate on myself.

Oh, man. Please, dear nonexistent God, don’t let this happen. I’d be wearing a diaper at age eighteen. You’re not supposed to need those until you’re eighty. It would also mean I’d only have managed to live fourteen years of my life without diapers. And you certainly don’t look cool in them.

Dear anesthesiologist, would it be possible for me to see what they cut away during the operation? I don’t like the idea that a part of me could end up in the trash along with aborted fetuses and appendixes without my being able to picture it. I want to hold it in my hand and examine it.

If that’s what you want, then sure.

Thanks. He sticks a catheter into my arm and secures everything with surgical tape. This is where they’ll pump in the anesthesia later. He says that in a few minutes a nurse will come to take me to surgery. Now the anesthesiologist too leaves me lying in the puddle of moisture from my blister and walks out.

The thought of anal incontinence worries me.

Dear nonexistent God, if I manage to get out of here without anal incontinence, I’ll stop doing all the things that give me a bad conscience. Like the game I play with my friend Corinna where we run through the city drunk and grab people’s eyeglasses, break them, and then chuck them into the street.

We have to run quickly—some people get so pissed off that they come after us really fast even without their glasses.

The game is stupid anyway because we always sober up from all the excitement and adrenaline. Big waste of money. Afterward we always have to start from scratch again getting drunk.

Actually, I’d like to give that game up anyway—sometimes at night I dream of the faces of the people whose glasses we’ve just plucked off. It’s as if we’ve ripped off a body part.

I’ll give that one up right now, and I’ll try to come up with a list of some other things.

Maybe if it’s absolutely necessary I’ll give up the hookers. That would be a major sacrifice, though. It would be great if giving up the glasses game would suffice.

I’ve decided to be the best patient this hospital has ever had. I’m going to be extra nice to the overworked nurses and doctors. I’ll clean up my own messes. Like the fluid from my blister. There’s an open box of rubber gloves on the windowsill. Obviously for examinations. Did Notz have one on when he popped the blister on my ass? Shit, I didn’t notice. Next to the carton of rubber gloves is a big translucent-plastic container. Tupperware for a giant. Maybe there’s something in there I can use to clean myself up. My bed is up against the window. Slowly, gingerly, I stretch myself out a little without moving my infected bum and manage to grab it. I pull the container onto my bed. Ouch. Lifting it and pulling it tenses my stomach muscles, sending a knife of pain into the infection. I pause. Close my eyes. Breathe deeply. Lie still. Wait for the pain to subside. Eyes open. Okay.

Now I can open the container. What excitement. It’s filled to the brim with giant hygienic wipes, adult diapers, disposable underwear, toweling, and bed covers that are plastic on one side and cloth on the other.

I would like to have had one of those under me when Notz came in. Then the bed wouldn’t be all wet. Not very comfortable. I need two of them now. One, cloth side down over the puddle. It’ll soak it up. But then I’d be laying on plastic. Don’t like that. So another one with its plastic side down—plastic on plastic—and the cloth side up. Well done, Helen. Despite the hellish pain, you are your own best nurse.

Anyone who can take care of herself so well will definitely recuperate quickly. I’ll have to be a bit more hygienic here in the hospital than I am outside in my normal life.

Hygiene’s not a major concern of mine.

At some point I realized that boys and girls are taught differently about how to keep their intimate regions clean. My mother placed great importance on the hygiene of my pussy but none at all on that of my brother’s penis. He’s allowed to piss without wiping and to let the last few drops dribble into his underwear.

Washing your pussy is considered a deadly serious science in our home. It’s made out to be extremely difficult to keep a pussy really clean. Which is nonsense, of course. A little water, a little soap, scrub-scrub. Done.

Just don’t wash too much. For one thing because of the all-important flora of the pussy. But also because of the taste and scent of the pussy, which is so important during sex. Don’t want to get rid of that. I’ve experimented with long periods of not washing my pussy. My aim is to get its enticing scent to waft lightly out of my pants, even through thick jeans or ski pants. Men won’t consciously notice it but it’ll register subliminally since we’re all just animals who want to mate—preferably with someone who smells like pussy.

Then, when you’re flirting, you can’t help smiling the whole time because you know what’s filling the air with that deliciously sweet scent. It’s what perfume is supposed to accomplish. We’re always told that perfume has an erotic effect on those around us. But why not use our own much more powerful perfume? In reality we’re all turned on by the scents of pussy, cock, and sweat. Most people have just been alienated from their bodies and trained to think that anything natural stinks and anything artificial smells nice. When a woman wearing perfume passes me on the street, it makes

Reviews for Wetlands

[shalulah · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved the character's frank discussions of hygiene & sexuality, but hated the plot. I kept telling myself, of course she's immature, she's still a teenager, but the whole thing with her parents just felt preposterous.

[steelwhisper · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Pretentious gimmick.

[irreverent_reader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. I loved that it pushed the gross out boundaries but in a very natural way. I have recommended this book to several female friends of mine; I really hope they read it! It is hilarious, thought provoking and just plane interesting! I absolutely love the unbridled look at human function in all forms.

[elmyra_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a book about two things:1. The female body, as it shits and pisses and menstruates and functions and malfunctions.2. Seriously broken families.Do not read this if you're squeamish. Most certainly do not read it while you're eating.I must admit I'm still not 100% sure what I think of it. But the fact is that I read most of it on aeroplanes and in Heathrow T5 and people looked at me as though I was crazy as I giggled quietly to myself and occasionally laughed out loud. So I must have enjoyed reading it, in between all the cringing, and it's certainly a very brave book.It reminds me of a few things. In some ways, it's a tongue-in-cheek take on the Vagina Monologues. In some ways it's a 21st century female take on The Catcher in the Rye, anrguably a more successful one at that.That's probably as much as I can say about it now. It sure as hell is weird.

[djfifitrix · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book, but also hated it at the same time - hence the 2.5 star review! I'm sure once you've read it you'll understand where I'm coming from.I'd never heard of this book until a few months ago, then loaned it from my local library. As others have said before me, the explicit descriptions of sex acts, bodily functions etc aren't really anything new, depending on what you've already read, watched, experienced etc. but how you perceive them is of course dependent on how open-minded, strong-stomached you are! I was shocked at some of the descriptions, and I thought I was pretty open-minded, especially when it comes to sex!In terms of the actual story and characters, I really thought Helen was, to be perfectly honest, a complete idiot, very selfish, very strange and, please mind my language, an utter bitch. I couln't sympathise with her at all, and wished ill things on her, although given her perversion and obsession with sexual parts, and espeically hygeine, I think the kind of things I wished on her she would have gotten off on! I believe Charlotte Roche (using descriptions of sexual acts, intimate parts, hygeine, and then the injuries Helen suffers and then consequently, inflicts on herself) intended to get under the readers skin in such a way that you cannot help but imagine doing these things to yourself, and not just be shocked/impressed at the range of disgusting things an 18 year old girl is capalbe of! I know I certainly could not stop thinking about some of the things, way past after they had happened, as they really got to me. And as for the ending - very disappointing and also quite stupidly far-fetched. It seemed to me that Roche had lost her thread and couldn't really think of an ending. I don't think trying to see Helen 'happy' worked for me, as I didn't think she deserved to be. I wasn't shocked by this book, but more disturbed by it and was also slightly embarrassed whilst reading it, as, as others may also feel, Roche inflicts things on you in those pages that most people would never think of, admit to, do to themselves/others. That's why I gave it 2.5 stars, as I feel a love/hate relationship towards it.

[niecierpek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It’s a book with a buzz. It’s the first German book to top the lists of Amazon bestsellers, and the one to which reviews referred to as a ‘feminist manifesto bordering pornography’. In truth, this book is both a tale of a troubled teenager, and a reaction to the artificial and sanitized model of femininity of the cosmetic ads and glossy magazines covers. Helen, an 18-year-old heroin, desperately needs warmth and attention, but nobody really cares about her. She wants love; she wants her parents together. She does outrageous things to get a stir from them, but to no avail. She is shameless, provocative and promiscuous, she experiments with drugs; all of that it seems to come to terms with her mother’s failed murder suicide and her parents’ divorce. Just like Helen, the book is outrageous, irreverent, attention seeking, but it’s also funny and very bold.

[theampersand · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reading "The Wetlands" made me think of a comment I once saw posted on a slightly seedy internet comment board in which some guy bemoaned the fact that French and German porn actresses tended to bore him because they were too comfortable with sex. Watching them go at it, he said, was sort of like watching them do aerobics, albeit using some unusual equipment. It got me thinking: maybe you can be too comfortable with sex! It might be lapsed Catholic in me talking, but maybe the idea that our naughty bits are indeed naughty adds something important to our sexual experiences. "The Wetlands" seems to confirm this hypothesis. Never have I read a novel so explicit and yet so dull. The explicit elements of this book have probably been described by other reviewers at length, so I won't go them here, save to say that Helen Memmel, our protagonist, has such a blasé attitude towards her own body that it verges on disassociation. Forget a mind-body connection: Helen describes her body as if it's a piece of furniture and hasn't yet secreted a bodily fluid she isn't perfectly at home with. Perhaps the author's trying to desacrilize the body or normalize its functions, or maybe she's trying to tweak Americans' supposedly overly puritanical conceptions of their own bodies. Either way, it makes "The Wetlands" a pretty flat and unexciting read. This is especially true since Helen herself isn't that interesting: even for a teenage protagonist, who might be forgiven for not being especially reflective, she's glib and self-centered. Heck, I'm not too sure that "shallow" isn't the correct adjective here. We watch her irritate nurses, manipulate doctors, and recount a couple of bodily fluid-intensive experiences without gaining much insight into the life that she may or may not have. Helen's a dirty, dirty girl, but not in the exciting sense that that phrase usually implies. The novel could probably have been improved by periodic visits from the grinning, broad-shouldered bald guy on the Mr. Clean bottle. And that, I guess, is my main problem with "The Wetlands." I'm just some American with a rather tense relationship with microbes, but I imagine that you'd have to go through some pretty significant trauma to get to where Helen is in this novel. And, yes, she talks about a couple of genuinely unpleasant incidents her past in her usual afectless tone. But there's little emotional resonance here. A lot of what passes for the emotional underpinnings to Helen's character is day-dreamy, by-the-numbers teenage sentimentality and doesn't seem to explain, never mind justify, the weird, messy place that she's ended up. Frankly, this kitschy stuff's a lot less forgivable than all of Helen's talk about her secretions and orifices. There are probably places here where the author could have made a larger point about modern society's relationship with impurity and our physical selves, but Helen's not really the right vessel for that: there's little in the way of social critique here. So that's it. "The Wetlands" is recommended to fans of outré literature who have a high tolerance for discussions of all things proctological, people interested in literary depictions of the body -- of which I admit I'm one -- absolutely shameless perverts, and nobody else. Remember to wash your hands thoroughly after reading this one.

[addictedtomorphemes · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This truly is the most disgusting book I've ever read. Without a doubt. I WILL be giving spoilers in this review, hopefully to spare you from having to gag your way through the book itself. DON'T READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK!! This was torturous to read (gross, stomach-turning and yet monotonous) but it bugs me not to finish a book once I've started it, just in case a seemingly bad or slow-starting book turns out to be great. FYI, this one did not magically change for the better. So for those of you who had the common sense to close the book after the first few pages and move on, I congratulate you. You made the right choice. But if you were curious how this repugnant thing turned out, here you go... This book takes place entirely in the hospital where 18-year-old Helen is recovering from surgery for an anal lesion. Which she goes into great detail about: how she got it, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like (shudder), ad infinitum. She goes into great detail about her hemorrhoids: how she got them, what they look like, what they feel like, what they...etc. etc. We also hear her reminisce about her varied, risky and hedonistic sex life (including anal, oral, receiving oral while menstruating, visiting brothels): how she gets into it, who goes where, what goes where, what it all looks like, what it all feels like, what it all smells like, what it all tastes like, etc., etc. This may make it sound like the descriptions are erotic. Trust me. They are not. They are told in a blunt, bold, crass manner by an unlikable character with a nose-thumbing attitude that is obviously intended to shock those around her. Not to speak for everybody, but my guess is unless you have a fetish for the hard-core things Helen digs and never shuts up about, you WILL be disgusted.She expounds on her drug use and how it has caused a loss of brain cells, which she finds humorous. She remembers a time when she and her friend got into a boyfriend's stash and ingested different drugs in copious amounts in one sitting while drinking red wine. Then they both got sick and vomited everything up into the same bucket. Of course, she had to describe in detail what that looked like, smelled like, oh, yes, and even tasted like. They saw some pills floating in that muck and thought it was a waste, so they both drank the bucket of mutual vomit until it was empty. Yes, I know. Do you understand why I felt nauseous at times reading this book?Helen had exceptionally poor hygiene habits. Understatement. HUGE understatement. She hadn't washed her face in years. In fact she went to great pains to make sure her face never got wet. It wasn't a fear of water. She just didn't think it was necessary (probably a rebellion against her mother's aversion to germs). She described secretions that would accumulate on her body after not bathing certain areas for a period of time. She described how she and a friend would swap used tampons under the bathroom stall doors and re-insert them--that way they could be "blood" sisters. She would deliberately smear blood on handrails, on money, on elevator buttons. Of course she never washed her hands, are you kidding me? It didn't matter what she touched. She liked being dirty. The grosser the better. At one point she was looking at and touching the infected tissue (now medical waste) that she had requested to see after her surgical procedure. That's okay to be curious about those things. HOWEVER; she had just gotten done describing every detail of it (blood, pus, red/yellow tissue, etc.), then realized her hands were dirty/bloody. Oh, well. She can just lick it off. Oh, and then finish her pizza. This whole book is relentless in its capacity for crudeness. Constant descriptions of blood, excrement, pus, scabs, mucous, you name it. And she loves eating it all, describing the most vile things as "delicacies". After trying to come up with ways to stay in the hospital, hoping it will force her parents to visit at the same time and realize they want to get back together, Helen ends up opening up her surgical wound by inserting part of the brake on her bed into the wound, causing her to nearly bleed to death and need a second emergency surgery. This girl is cooked.I had a glimmer of hope that there would be some redemption for Helen and for the book itself when she revealed flashback memories of the dysfunction of her childhood. It seems her mother's warped sense of, well, everything most likely caused the current repulsive behavior that Helen so childishly displays on a constant and unrelenting basis. Helen is obviously hurt and angry. Yes, I feel bad that her mother attempted suicide when she was younger and tried to take her little brother with her (leaving Helen to wonder why her mom didn't want to take her too). Yes, I feel bad she is still hurting about her parents' divorce and really wants them to get back together. I presume these understandable hurts transferred over to the obvious anger and disdain toward everyone else, to the degree that she blatantly tries to shock everyone around her, has no regard for others, and is basically, just...nasty. In every way.In the end, she talks Robin, a male nurse who befriends her, into letting her live with him so she won't have to go back home to her mother. He agrees and is actually pretty kind to her. Seems like a good guy. But can Helen walk away with us thinking she might be growing up and possibly have a chance with this nice nurse guy? That maybe he'll be able to teach her some good hygiene? Well, maybe, but first she has to rip up her hospital room in order to leave a "goodbye message", an elaborate visual depicting her mother's suicide attempt years earlier. Drawing an oven on the wall, ripping the wallpaper down to look like the oven door, laying her mom's clothes out on the floor to make it look like how she found her unconscious mom and little brother. Just letting dear old mom know that she remembers. A last F.U. to her family. Gee, how unlike Helen's usual behavior. P.S. One crazy thing is the author's photo is such a complete contrast to the story itself. She looks all coy and shy, kind of pixie-like. Shoot, she even has little daisies on her blouse. It's so weird that this type of work could come from the mind of someone who looks like her!

[kolbkarlsson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wetlands is all about Genitalia and bodily functions. Wetlands presents them en masse with a sliver of a plot in between, giving us pretty much one character to relate to, namely Helen. Helen spends the book hospitalized, musing about her genitals (as well as her hemmorhoids). The little we get served about helen is in that case, a big heap of vagina, with some asses thrown in. The topic is fine and dandy in my book, and as i can see why this is a welcome topic nowadays, when gender roles seems to be creeping slowly back to the middle ages. The problem is that it all seems a bit joyless. There is not much story told in between, just big spoonfulls of vaginal ooze, which is amusing for a while, but not too long. To top it off, Wetlands is presented with a rockist sensibility, a sense of fuck you, which feels dated and tiresome. That leaves wetlands standing with a big middle finger, but is in the end neither provoking nor gross. But in the end, Wetlands is still an essential read for pretty much everyone. It's still a decent novel about a subject that needs to be adressed. I just wished for something interesting to be said between all those piles of vagina.

[rainbowiris-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the most unusual,original book I had the pleasure to read in the past six month.Charlotte Roches dares every subject that would seem shockingly disturbing otherwise,and she does it with such style,in such a natural and pleasurable way that it is almost impossible to close the book until you reached the last page.

[erraticlucidity · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A hilarious commentary to make you question how you think about your body, and it's functions. At times repetitive, and maybe a little too bizarre; Wetlands may be counterproductive for the message it wishes to portray. Eighteen year old Helen is in hospital being treated for an infected anal lesion. The promiscuous narrator is no stranger to her body, and much of the book is filled with stories of previous sexual exploits. At the core, however, is an attack against the modern waxed, douched, scented, and doused in makeup female.

[gingerbreadman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a slim novel about a young woman’s happy obsession with her own body and it’s functions and excretions, especially her genitals and her anus. It takes this theme pretty far indeed. I guess you already have a strong hunch if this is for you or not. If you don’t think it is, it isn’t. Trust me.Eighteen year old Helen is in hospital to have very painful surgery performed on her sphincter. She decides to use this condition to try and get her parents back together. Which means she can’t allow herself to be sent home too soon. In the meantime she hits it off with Robin, a young male nurse, and tells him about her lovelife and other secrets. All of it dosed in hefty doses of mucus, menstrual blood, hair, blackheads, urine and smegma.German writers do this kind of happy provocation better than anyone. What could have been purely about shock value and grossing the reader out, instead, through Helen’s attitude and matter-of-factness becomes a rather liberating read. You’d kind of want every teenage girl with deep fears of a hair in the wrong place, or even the faintest whiff of sweat, to take a test-dive into this cesspool and come up a freer person. Holding the novel together is a small streak of sorrow. Roche plays Helen’s sadness about her family extremely low – subtleness in a pretty darn un-subtle book, and it’s effective. I wish there had been a little bit more of that though, instead of peppering the pages with new musky smells until the very last page.

[csmcmahon_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I tried describing this book to a friend and had a difficult time. I've heard it described as provocative, and I would agree. It's both humorous and disturbing. It's definitely not for everyone. The young woman is shockingly open about her sex life and her obsession with hygiene or rather her battle with society's obsession with hygiene. But at the heart is a girl who is just struggling to adjust to her parent's divorce.

[ficusfan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I learned about this book on LT. It was quite controversial, so of course I had to read it. It was only available new in hardcover which I don't buy, and it would have had to be ordered. None of my local stores had it. My new Kindle ability came to the rescue and I downloaded it.It was a short, quick read. The writing was fine (translation). It lived up to its billing it is controversial. It is possibly the most disgusting book I have ever read - so if you are easily grossed out or offended, skip it. There are lots of descriptions of the body and its functions and the fluids and solids it creates and excretes. The main character helps out with the distribution of these fluids and solids and in fact revels in what most would find repulsive.She is 18 and in the hospital due to an anal lesion she produced when shaving between her butt cheeks. It has become infected and she required surgery to repair it. While she is there she is musing about her life and her beliefs regarding her body, sex, and hygiene. The other issue that drives her is the divorce of her parents and how she feels lost and betrayed by their split. She schemes of ways to bring them back together, like a much younger child would.As has been described elsewhere she battles with the idea of hygiene that society has imposed on people in general and women in particular. But I also think that her despair at her parents' divorce ties into her behavior and is not just a secondary story line. She is clearly acting out, possibly because she feels invisible to her parents. They are too busy with their own lives to take her or her feelings into account. Her grossness is her way of shouting for attention with her extreme actions making her stand out and actually 'exist'. She is also showing her anger in how she forces her beliefs on others. She will interact with others but they don't know that the hand they shake has just been inside her, and has not been washed. She will rub her used tampon on the walls and hand holds in the elevator, all manifestations of anger. She is forcing her beliefs on others without giving them a chance to accept or reject them. That part pissed me off.Mostly I thought she was interesting, and sad as well as gross. Her treatment of others, rather than her grossness was what lost me her sympathy. Read at your own risk.

[agentrelaxed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not particularly groundbreaking to anyone who has read a sex blog in the past ten years, but as a work of feminist literature in this so-called "post-feminist" world, this is a particularly important little book. Approaching a woman (or adolescent girl, as the case may be) not just as a subject of disgust, but as a creature who revels in what our society considers to be abject, is still considered among most to be a faux pas at best and a reprehensible act at worst. This book will work your gag reflex, and that's something we can all do with more of.

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well, it was what it was and she either had her hand up her cunt or up her arse just about most of the time. I honestly don't know how she managed to type. Maybe she didn't type but instead just daubed on the walls. Whatever, but there sure was a lot of that stuff, more than anywhere else I have yet to read. I can remember reading one bit and starting to see where it was going and thinking to myself, "she couldn't", then, "she wouldn't", then "of course she did".

And somewhere along the way I kinda thought that the whole point of it was "of course she did".

I found none of it shocking or disgusting, I mean, who hasn't had their fingers in the their own, or someone else's, orifices at some point or another and revelled in it? Well, I have but never enough to write a whole book about.

I did like the subtext of the parents story and was a bit sorry there wasn't more substance to it, maybe I should have said I wished the parents had been more solid and not just another smear on the wall.