Wrecked

"Sex is the answer to death."Charlotte RocheIn her controversial first novel, Wetlands, which The New York Times called "a cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world”, Roche wrote about sex and the female body in an unprecedentedly frank and intimate way. Roche's second novel, Wrecked is just as raw and powerful as her debut, but is a more mature and impressive work that deals with sex, death, fidelity, and the question of what is expected from a twenty-first century wife and mother."It's easier to give a blow job than to make coffee." That's what Elizabeth Kiehl, mother of seven-year-old Liza thinks to herself, after a particularly lengthy and inventive bout of sex with her husband Georg—recounted in detail over the book's first twenty pages. Elizabeth goes to great efforts to pleasure her husband in the bedroom, and also is an extremely thoughtful and caring mother to her daughter. But the perfect mother and wife act she puts on hides a painful past and a tragic rift in her psyche, which she is working through in weekly sessions with her therapist. Sex is the other tool that she uses to relax herself. Elizabeth and Georg watch porn together, and even go off on joint trips to a local brothel for threesomes with prostitutes while their daughter is at school. But is their relationship unhealthy, even tragic, or just a very modern marriage?

Roche, Charlotte

Harpercollins

With more than one million copies sold in Germany and rights snapped up in twenty-seven countries, Wetlands is the sexually and anatomically explicit novel that is changing the conversation about female identity and sexuality around the world. Helen Memel is an outspoken eighteen-year-old, whose childlike stubbornness is offset by a precocious sexual confidence. She begins her story from a hospital bed, where she’s slowly recovering from an operation and lamenting her parents’ divorce. To distract herself, Helen ruminates on her past sexual adventures in increasingly uncomfortable detail, taking the reader on a sensational journey through Helen’s body and mind. Punky alienated teenager, young woman reclaiming her body from the tyranny of repressive hygiene (women mustn’t smell, excrete, desire), bratty smartass, vulnerable, 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. As Helen constantly blurs the line between celebration, provocation, and dysfunction in her relationship with her body, Roche exposes the double bind of female sexuality, delivering a compulsively readable and fearlessly intimate manifesto on sex, hygiene, and the repercussions of family trauma.

Wetlands

Literature & Fiction

Literary

GROVE PRESS

"Sex is the answer to death."Charlotte Roche In her controversial first novel, Wetlands, which The New York Times called "a cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world”, Roche wrote about sex and the female body in an unprecedentedly frank and intimate way. Roche's second novel, Wrecked is just as raw and powerful as her debut, but is a more mature and impressive work that deals with sex, death, fidelity, and the question of what is expected from a twenty-first century wife and mother. "It's easier to give a blow job than to make coffee." That's what Elizabeth Kiehl, mother of seven-year-old Liza thinks to herself, after a particularly lengthy and inventive bout of sex with her husband Georg—recounted in detail over the book's first twenty pages. Elizabeth goes to great efforts to pleasure her husband in the bedroom, and also is an extremely thoughtful and caring mother to her daughter. But the perfect mother and wife act she puts on hides a painful past and a tragic rift in her psyche, which she is working through in weekly sessions with her therapist. Sex is the other tool that she uses to relax herself. Elizabeth and Georg watch porn together, and even go off on joint trips to a local brothel for threesomes with prostitutes while their daughter is at school. But is their relationship unhealthy, even tragic, or just a very modern marriage?

Grove Press/ Black Cat

Wetlandsan international sensation with more than a million copies sold worldwidehas been at the center of a heated debate about feminism and sexuality since its publication last spring. Charlotte Roche’s controversial debut novel is the story of Helen Memel, an outspoken, sexually precocious eighteen-year-old lying in a hospital bed as she recovers from an operation. To distract herself, she ruminates on her past sexual and physical adventures in increasingly uncomfortable detail. The result is a funny, shocking, and fearlessly intimate manifesto on sex, hygiene, and the compulsion to obliterate the covenant that keeps girls clean, quiet, and nice.

The sensational new novel from Charlotte Roche, author of WetlandsIn her controversial first novel, Wetlands, which The New York Times called “a cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world,” Roche wrote about sex and the female body in an unprecedentedly frank way. Roche’s second novel, Wrecked, is just as raw and powerful as her debut but is a more mature work that deals with sex, death, fidelity and the question of what is expected from a 21st-century wife and mother.It’s easier to give a blow job than to make coffee. That’s what Elizabeth Kiehl, mother of seven-year-old Liza, thinks to herself after a particularly lengthy and inventive bout of sex with her husband Georg—recounted in detail over the book’s first sixteen pages. Elizabeth makes great efforts to pleasure her husband in the bedroom and is also an extremely thoughtful and caring mother to her daughter. But her perfect mother and wife act hides a painful past and a tragic rift in her psyche. As a result, Elizabeth’s relationship with Georg is rather unusual: most husbands and wives wouldn’t watch porn together or go off on joint trips to a local brothel for threesomes with prostitutes while their daughter is at school. But is their relationship unhealthy or just a very modern marriage?

HarperCollins, Publishers

An international sensation—with more than 1 million copies sold in Germany, and rights snapped up in 26 countries—Wetlands is the sexually and anatomically explicit novel that is changing the conversation about female identity and sexuality around the world.
Helen Memel is an outspoken, contradictory eighteen-year-old, whose childlike stubbornness is offset by a precocious sexual confidence. She begins her story from a hospital bed, where she’s slowly recovering from an operation and lamenting her parents’ divorce. To distract and console herself, Helen ruminates on her past sexual and physical adventures in increasingly uncomfortable detail; what ensues is “a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator’s body and mind.” (The New York Times) 
Fantastically sexual, Helen is constantly blurring the line between celebration, provocation, and dysfunction in her relationship with her body. Punky alienated teenager, young woman reclaiming her body from the tyranny of repressive hygiene (women mustn’t smell, excrete, desire), bratty smartass, vulnerable, 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. 
In the tradition of The Sexual Life of Catherine M and Melissa P.’s 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, Charlotte Roche exposes the double bind of female sexuality, delivering a compulsively readable and fearlessly intimate manifesto on sex, hygiene, and the repercussions of family trauma.

Wetlands is narrated by eighteen-year-old Helen Memel, an outspoken, contradictory teenager whose childlike stubbornness is paired with a premature sense of sexual confidence. She speaks from a hospital bed in the Department of Internal Medicine, where she’s recovering from an operation after accidentally cutting her hemorrhoids while shaving. The surgery leaves her bedridden and in excruciating pain. Beyond her physical discomfort, Helen is still reeling over her parents’ divorce.
But while she sees her hospitalization as the perfect way to get her parents in a room together, she continuously fails to synchronize a visitation. To distract herself, Helen boldly flirts with and intentionally tries to unnerve her male nurse, and maintains a constant flow of deeply candid narration that thrusts the reader on “a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct” (The New York Times) of Helen’s body and mind. Surrounded by surgical instruments and humming Xray machines, she reflects in ever more uncomfortable detail on the eccentric wonders of the female body.
Wetlands is a fearless, gritty and, at times, revolting slap in the face to the glossy, sanitized prescription for femininity espoused by women’s magazines.

Harper-perennial

Mädchen für alles

Contemporary

Piper Verlag GmbH

Schoßgebete

Feuchtgebiete

DuMont Buchverlag GmbH

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Books by Roche, Charlotte

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roche, Charlotte. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Wrecked

Wetlands

Wrecked

Wetlands

Wrecked

Wetlands

Wetlands

Mädchen für alles

Schoßgebete

Feuchtgebiete