Why is ‘millennial fiction’ so full of bodily fluids?
I’m currently listening to Daisy Buchanan’s ‘Insatiable’, the first novel by the popular podcaster and journalist, which I’ve been dying to read since the rave reviews started coming in pre-publication. At 19% in, I’m ready to DNF it.
Here’s the synopsis:
Stuck in a dead-end job, broken-hearted, broke and estranged from her best friend: Violet's life is nothing like she thought it would be. She wants more - better friends, better sex, a better job - and she wants it now.
So, when Lottie - who looks like the woman Violet wants to be when she grows up - offers Violet the chance to join her exciting start-up, she bites. Only it soon becomes clear that Lottie and her husband Simon are not only inviting Violet into their company, they are also inviting her into their lives.
Seduced by their townhouse, their expensive candles and their Friday-night sex parties, Violet cannot tear herself away from Lottie, Simon or their friends. But is this really the more Violet yearns for? Will it grant her the satisfaction she is so desperately seeking?
Insatiable is about women and desire - lust, longing and the need to be loved. It is a story about being unable to tell whether you are running towards your future or simply running away from your past. The result is at once tender and sad, funny and hopeful.
And I should be loving it - I’m a millennial, I support female lust and desire, I know what it feels to be in a lacklustre job situation - and yet I got nuthin’.
Swathes of prominent names have called it extraordinary, funny, refreshing and raw, but to me it just felt exactly the same as the other ‘millennial fiction’ books I’ve tried to read and ended up not liking or even not finishing.
I didn’t even realise that ‘millennial fiction’ had such a distinct flavour to it until I brought it up with Sarah and we started discussing it, but it really does. Let’s make a ‘millennial fiction’ list:
Middle class woman in her mid-late 20/early 30s
A grungy London living sitch
A dead-end job
Disastrous love life
A split from her beloved BFF
A narcissistic ex
An excessive amount of bodily fluids and functions
Only 19% in to the audiobook, ‘Insatiable’ had hit all of these marks. I turned off the audio for the night and then for the next few days chose to work in silence instead of listening to anymore. Though the writing was fine, I didn’t care about Violet, Lottie or her husband. The story didn’t grab me.
And all I could think about was how graphic the sex and body-related scenes were, which I honestly have no issue with, but the language that was used was so uncomfortable and off-putting that it made me feel a nauseous. I started to realise that all of these issues were the same issues I’d had with other lauded, ‘fresh’, millennial fiction over the last few years. Naoise Dolan’s ‘Exciting Times’, ‘Supper Club’ by Lara Williams, Eliza Clark’s ‘Boy Parts’, ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ by Otessa Moshfegh. They’re all the same, and not for me, sadly.
It’s always a bit disappointing when a whole emerging genre of exciting and relevant sounding novels that should hit right at my demographic and life experience just miss because I’m not the right kind of millennial. They make me feel like I’m doing my life wrong because I don’t fit into these middle class, London-based, start-up workers who have the freedom to mess up their lives as they can always go home to the safety of their parents. These characters don’t reflect the people in my life either and I have no point of connection to them or their stories.
Are you connecting with this genre of novels?
Written by Sophie
