Acts of Service: "A sex masterpiece" (Guardian)

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and this is a very long prelude to saying: that is how this book opens up, and the promise it makes to its readers. Eve's private thoughts interpret many scenes with her feminist, anti-capitalist critique of everything, from Olivia and Nathan's workplace dynamics, to their avoidance of safe words.

As incisive as it is exhilarating, this novel asks us to face our ideas about desire and power: what sex means to us, the forces that shape it, and how we find-or lose-ourselves in intimacy. Taut, thorny, and sublimely fraught, Acts of Service stares straight into the white-hot center of desire with a cool, incisive eye.love is not always romantic, and power dynamics within relationships are not always solidified or black and white.

She shouldn’t enjoy Nathan’s domineering tendencies, which are, in the lexicon of the ethical system she is trying so hard to abide by, “problematic”. what i loved the most was fishman’s ability to discern layers in what usually feels like one vast notion. I don't think this book that centres around women being "liberated" by a man making choices for them and having their entire life in his hands can in any way shape or form be feminist? eve's girlfriend, romi, is given zero depth beyond being the "perfect girlfriend," which the author attempts to justify by having romi criticize eve for seeing her as too perfect when they break up. If you love watching the new Gossip Girl TV Show, with sexuality weaved into the show, then you will love this book Acts of Service.This man saw many other women, and I knew this, and so did they, and yet everyone kept coming back and I totally understood because I did, too. For Eve, pleasure-seeking with Nathan is a deliberate sin against shallowly appropriated queerness . of course it's done pretty well for itself - it has the it factor that good litfic has, that simply can’t be faked or polished no matter how prestigious the mfa (though make no mistake the mfa is prestigious and the polish is significant - irl lol at seeing jonathan safran foer namechecked in the acks). Even though our main character originally went into this whole thing being interested in the woman, she ends up finding herself a lot more pleased when submitting to the man.

So, it may be the case that buried in the narrative are all sorts of fascinating insights, and burning questions, I simply failed to pick up on.

The degree to which these ladies are horrified by their own shameful, desperate, orgasmic delight in Nathan’s domination - his insistence that he knows exactly what they want despite their protests to the contrary - is exaggerated to the point of being laughable. Romi was much better than I was at the crossword, but she was hampered by little free time and an aversion to competitive spite. There are some interesting issues raised and the build up is promising but after Eve and Nathan's first meeting it all goes a bit flat and page after page of Eve self-analysing left me cold I'm afraid. Her gratitude to Nathan, she explains truthfully, is beyond what can be codified or legally anatomised. fishman paints a rich and complex portrait of sexuality in the twenty-first century and its adjacent concepts of power and agency and how we are perceived by others.

As incisive as it is exhilarating, this novel asks us to face our ideas about desire and power: what sex means to us, the forces that shape it, and how we find--or lose--ourselves in intimacy. This book asks us to consider what it might mean to truly honour our own desires; however messy they might be. Then a chance encounter provides a space to explore the feelings Eve’s tried to suppress and she begins a physical relationship with a stranger, artist Olivia, and her partner wealthy, self-assured Nathan.

Nathan, not only an artist but also a philosopher, explains: “The only way to fail, to fuck, badly, is to know what you want and to extract it from another person.