Swan’s international bestselling novel The Wives of Bath, is both a shocking Gothic tale about a murder in a girls’ boarding school and an adolescent confession. Mouse and Paulie, reluctant fourteen-year-old boarders at Bath Ladies College, are confronted by the slippery quest for one small, vital thing: the thing that definitively makes boys different from girls.
The novel was made into the feature film Lost and Delirious, shown in 34 countries. Since the film’s debut, young women all over the world have role-played the parts of Mouse, Tory and Paulie on the Lost and Delirious website.
So I finally picked this up after learning that one of my favorite movies Lost and Delirious is inspired by this. Please note it is not an actual adaptation as the movie and book are extremely different. The only thing truly similar is the character names are the same and Paulie's personality is pretty on point.
This book was crazy and I loved it. It completely sucked me in and I read it in one day. I think this book is really important because it really was an older book that had topics about gender and sexuality long before those things were ever talked about as they are today. It went there with a character who was born a girl but was actually a boy. I think the author handles it beautifully for the time period it was conceived in. The plot was a little all over the place but that's part of the charm of this story. It was a little annoying how everything was told though Mouse when the movie does give us a bit more Paulie.
All in all this book is a classic in my eyes and I think anyone who wants more LGBTQIA+ in their life should read it.
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26 July, 2019:
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