Body's a Bad Monster

by Rowan Isabelle Perez

Body’s a Bad Monster is a harrowing exploration of trauma and freedom told in captivating poetic prose from social media sensation Rowan Perez, also known as rid inkskinned.

In Body’s a Bad Monster, our narrator shares—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes reluctantly—their voice with a dissociative state called “Mouse”; Mouse and the narrator take turns inhabiting the “body” to tell the story of three monumental relationships in the narrator’s life as they unravel over time. Readers are guided along as Mouse moves in and out of love, pain, heartbreak, and redemption.

Author Rowan Perez, a prolific and innovative writer, expertly uses non-traditional poetic devices—like a lease agreement for her dissociative voice and erasure text to intentionally refuse to engage with male voices or violence—to explore themes of religious trauma, queerness, and body dysmorphia.

Body’s a Bad Monster is an engaging, one-of-a-kind journey from a bold and talented voice.

Genres: Poetry

352 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m at a loss for words.

I have followed inkskinned’s Tumblr for over a year and am always in awe and introspective after reading their posts. When it was announced she was releasing a book, I pre-ordered it immediately.

Body’s a Bad Monster is the first book I’ve ever needed to annotate. I can’t even fathom the words to describe how this book has impacted me. I haven’t read such a real and gripping book in such a long time. I’ve never felt more seen and comforted by the fact I’m not alone in my feelings.

Everything, from the formatting to the dialogue is incredible.

This beautiful work of art has etched itself into my soul and completely transformed me. I’ll forever be haunted by this book. It’s officially one of my yearly rereads.

Thank you, Rowan Perez, for sharing this with us. You are an incredibly talented writer and I’m looking forward to any and all works you put out in the future.

[Savannah Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m blown away by the writings of this author and will read anything and everything published by them 🥹

[Danté E. Corrales · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If my identity was a sin, then the answer was simply to always be sorry. Repent now, for you are at the hour of the soul's death."

What the fuck, man. I have never related to a book as much as I did with this one. It felt as if some scenes were taken straight from my life, and it hurt. I loved the creativity in the writing, the disjointed feeling of the story, and how you felt the main character's pain. However, one thing that took me out of the story was the amount of "Likes" in the dialogue. Every OTHER WORD had "Like" between them, and it made reading long dialogue very annoying to the point my brain just stopped reading the word "like." Other than that, a masterpiece.

[Jess Aitchison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been following this author for at least a decade and it feels unreal to finally have her book in my hands. The writing is so honest and universal, that it feels like she's describing how I personally felt at different points of my own life. It's very confronting to be able to relate to her writing.

I had to physically stop myself from skipping ahead as I was so concerned for the characters and desperate for Mouse's happy ending, knowing that her idea of a "happy ending" will leave her heartbroken or dead.

I want to reread this immediately, but I think I'll have to wait for the sake of my stressed little heart.

[Davy · Rating 3 out of 5]

FAVORITE QUOTES:
"no matter how full we are, love always fits."

"we might spend months or years collecting seashells, just for the hope we will one day find the one beautiful and perfect enough to string along on a necklace. in the meantime, we have still collected something. and it’s lovely, the act of collecting."

"my father had signed us up for bible school exactly two weeks after i had asked: what would you do if i was gay?"

"you sit on her dorm bed and loosely let your legs touch hers. in other (straight) friendships, this is nothing."

"neither body moves, which is, of course, a move you’re both making."

"You feel her breathe against your collarbone at night and try to weave the memory through you like water through a sieve."

"This could be a good life you are choosing. Choose it harder, Mouse. Lean in." (this one is especially a favourite!)




What I liked:
1) Erasure text:
I'm into it, this is uncommon and fun!
Per the bio, the author uses "erasure text to intentionally refuse to engage with male voices or violence". I was startled when I first came across this; then I loved it. A whole phone conversation with her father blocked out, only "small" and later "Mouse" intact. The woman she's in love with, who she hears loud and clear, followed by the words of the woman's boyfriend; " ". It was a great show, don't tell moment! Though I do wish at the end, as the cycle of erasure is ending, more had been said without censure.

2) Motifs
The (birthed, forced, chosen) 'monstrification' of queer bodies - ala disney villains, Ocean Vuong, etc etc etc - it's a path well tread, but still good

3) Queerness
Ahhhh, classic gay yearning. The way women are allowed to 'get away' with queerness and have it be (forcibly) read as platonic- hugging, kissing, sleeping in bed together- but how that nearness almost hurts more than full denial, knowing that greyed-over space can never be crossed. The unique hurt of having such restrictive homophobia come from the same women you are doing increasingly queer things with. She gets it; she shares it; I get it.

4) Ending up single
Hooray!!! Finally. I was truly dreading a 'and then I found true love and it solved all my problems'-style twist. Seeing the same choice being made over and over again, and it doesn't work, and finally the narrator can turn away from it- that was awesome

5) Vulnerable topics
I haven't seen a lot of first-person perspective books that put you in the shoes of someone actively struggling with an eating disorder, dysmorphia, alcohol use disorder, intimate partner violence, mental illness, etc. Risky business for a memoir and you can't help but feel proud at seeing the way the author faces all of these very common yet very hidden experiences


What I didn't like as much:
1) Semi-linear narrative interrupted by unstructured prose:
Idea: cool. Execution: didn't love it.
I like taking little breaks from a linear narrative, but the majority of the time I had a hard time justifying why X freeform writing had to be in Y spot specifically. There were many pretty darlings that I would've recommended be saved for another time or place or book, because the transitions between them just didn't click. It felt like when there were natural pausing points in the narrative, a random assortment of leftover poeticisms were simply smooshed into the blank spaces that remained.

I actually don't know how accurate this feeling is- I get the impression the author thinks very intentionally about even tiny details of their work. But if the freeform prose WAS in certain areas for certain reasons, I don't think the reader was necessarily invited into those spaces to find out how- and that is an experience that, for me, distinguishes personal journaling from memoir writing. It's like getting invited into a gallery to look at cool art that has no explanatory plaques on it and a big sign that says DON'T TOUCH.

2) Redundancy/Very Slow Pacing
This book needed to be majorly edited down (yes, much like all of my own reviews, but I'm not paying an editor for these!). I'm not sure my impression of the book or what I got out of it would've changed much if a giant bite was taken out of the middle. It felt like the writer was trying on a lot of similar outfits and they all look kind of equally good and no editor made them choose just one and instead of thinking 'wow, THAT one is a great outfit!' they all ended up blurring together.

To be clear, redundancy does not a bad writer nor story make... I can see how the redundancy of motifs in this story represents the repeating cycle of hurt/heal, the dangerous and unrelenting perseverations of mental illness, etc etc... But, like... I understood all this in the first few cycles. After that, reading the same conversations over and over felt unnecessarily exhausting. Most of my selected quotes are from the first 30%, and it's not because the prose got worse later on! It just all needed more space to breathe.

[Gwen Konchar · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wanted to like this book so bad. i was so excited to read going in but ultimately i dont think i liked it. often there were writing choices that made little sense and confused the story as a whole. its even more frustrating when i think about the parts of the book i loved and heavily related to. at the end of the day this is a personal account of survival and the parts that focused on what absue does to you and how you come back were so powerful as someone whose been in similar situations of SA but it was often bogged down with what felt like unrelated and off the cuff points and choices. truly the story is SO beautiful and real at times but i cant ignore the times i felt so captivated only to have it ruined and pulled out of it. which is confusing because i felt so compelled to finish. maybe the more i think about it my mind will change but this is my initial thoughts after just finishing the book

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

“you will see the good in the world, even if it leave you absolutely ruined.” -p. 306

This book is truly a spectacular work— such a unique writing style and great use of nontraditional poetry. Every word truly counts in this novel as the author builds emotion and experiences through modern and straightforward prose; you can practically taste the bloodshed through the pages.

It is also such an overall cathartic and relatable depiction of trauma, mental illness, and being heartbroken. The novel structure is disjointed, splitting between the past, present, and future much in the way that human beings live our daily lives. I’ve never really read an auto-fiction before, but I found it amazing how I was hung up on who the narrator was, what they are doing, and who they were afraid to become. It is extremely relatable, which is a major reason why I found it hard to put this book down!

It is concrete proof that the secret to living is becoming your own hero. I hope one day to be okay with my plants thriving.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Body's a Bad Monster is a gorgeous, glorious piece of writing. I knew it would be excellent, but picking it up and beginning to page through it felt like meeting someone I had forgotten. It puts into words things I have felt so deeply but have never managed, as a writer, to give my own words to. It is vivid, and brilliant, and its descriptors are tangible in the fact that I want to eat them and swallow them whole. Everything flows together in a way that feels so absurdly right it's insane. This book, for the first time in a long time, made me cry because I felt seen. There are very few things that feel the way this book has made me feel, like clawing your way back into being okay and sitting on the bank of a river, fruit juice lacing around your wrists. I love this book, I love this author, and I am so happy that I am able to hold it in my hands and cherish the pages. This has healed a part of me, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone, regardless of if they have struggled with mental health or not. It's compelling regardless of if you can relate. I will be keeping this on my nightstand for the rest of my life, and I will be giving it to the two people I love the most; I have not been able to put myself and the internality of it all into words, but this book does it for me in the most perfect way, encapsulating exactly what OCD feels like in a way that I can finally show to the ones I love and say this. This is me. This is what breathing feels like to me. It transcends ink and paper. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the author, for writing this. It means, truly, so so much to me, and I wish you all the very best for the rest of eternity.

[Alaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I even finished this book, I was recommending it to all my friends (by which I really mean desperately pleading with them) so I could discuss it. This is the kind of book you read once and immediately know you'll be reading many more times because there are so many layers and so much to discover. I still have unanswered questions, and that's how it should be. Body's a Bad Monster isn't prescriptive; it's not telling you the answers, but it is forcing you to think about the questions. This is a completely captivating story that I got lost in, but at the same time, my mind was going wild with deep thoughts that I can't articulate nearly as well as Rowan does so I won't try. It can be a tough book to get through in that it can elicit some very strong emotions or prompt some very startling realizations (I ended up recognizing a lot of things in myself that I didn't expect to), but it's so worth it. Similarly, there's a lot of confusion, especially at the beginning — that's good. Embrace the confusion. Think about what purpose ambiguity and uncertainty serve — for narrative effect, and for life. Lean in to the not-knowing. This is a very ramble-y review because I am too passionate about this book for coherent thought, but TLDR is everybody should read Body's a Bad Monster. ASAP.

[Spider B Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not cry. I did, however, sit in silence and stare off into space for about half an hour at one point, because I could taste the way that being hungry (the calories my doctor put me on were too few for a toddler) felt and the knowledge that if I just drank more water I would be okay (not okay) because I was being Virtuous (virtue feels like being hollowed out) and this diet would get rid of the agony in my legs and feet (it would not because you cannot diet away a tumor inside your spinal column, crushing your spinal cord as it grows). I was evacuated from That Man's house by friends. I was wildly gaslit by That Girl for years.

In the best ways, it was like looking through an 18th century window, the ones old enough to remind us that glass is just a very slow liquid, actually, and the shapes under the strange ocean surface of that glass/water are not a reflection but sometimes different parts of the world accidentally rhyme.

It was the best, most emotionally difficult book I've read in a long, long time.

[Same Same · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful. Gorgeous and utterly captivating. The kind of wordplay that draws you in and claws at you when you attempt to put it down. A painful journey to go on, yet one with sparks of hope and love. Especially at the end.

I wonder about Marlowe, and if she’s alright and safe inside her romantic relationship with her fiancé. Her actions and the subtleties of her behaviors sound an alarm in my mind, that not everything is alright.

A book where I want to hold all the women, in comfort and safety: yet where I also want to grip them by the shoulders and shake them violently “can’t you see what’s happening. Please stop this. You can stop this.”

There are a lot of feelings left over. I will be thinking about it for quite some time.

Finished this over my March trip to Austin.

[Pais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like everyone else I was blown away

- i learned what autofiction is
- my perspective on novels, structure, timelines, prose, and so much more has been changed forever
- made me feel everything. At parts I couldn’t put it down and at parts I had to
- the vampires, zombies, werewolves, angels throughout were fantastic
- loved the etymology
- learned so many new words
- whole thing is full of annotations and I will definitely be reading it again and lending it to friends
- the cover and weight of the pages made me so happy it’s such a high quality book
- was very relatable for me and I think so many people could relate to it in one way or another

TLDR; beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful, real, just read it okay

[Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listen. I like this girl’s poetry. She’s got talent. But the talent is too raw. It is not the same to write a one page poem than to attempt to write a novel. There’s a lot of pretentious broken poetry drowning in self hatred (this is actually a quote that would fit easily inside the book). Girl, sometimes you doo need an editor. There’s a lot of “prose noise”, some of the ideas and metaphors are really good, and a few are freaking beautiful, but most of them are performative.

The characters arcs are poorly explored, the story is pretty messy and the ending is predictable as hell.

It is not a good book. Specially if you’ve read anything beyond Tumblr.

Still, it takes guts to write something so personal for everyone to see. So I’ll always respect authors for that.

[Caoimhe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perez’s writing can be extremely powerful—I have some of her words tattooed on my arms—but while individual passages in this novel might be very powerful I didn’t feel like it cohered all that much and the purpose of most of the stylistic flourishes felt opaque to me: The second-person narration, the unjustified text, the segments in all lowercase. I don’t know what really they were in service of. Perhaps, being someone pretentious enough to format blog posts as if they were formal writing, I shouldn’t be so judgemental of someone formatting a novel like a blog post, but the only trick I found particularly affecting is the big, blunt, obvious one: The blacked out text for the things that don’t want to be remembered or voiced.

[Kenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

picked this up after revisiting the tumblr account of one of my favorite poets from when i was in highschool and was pleasantly surprised to see she has published a book! immediately bought and subsequently devoured.

it’s like the author was in my head - i have never related to a character’s headspace more. extremely depressing at times, but extremely validating to feel so seen and not alone. the writing style is beautiful as everything from this author is. a real depiction of healing from trauma and relationships expressed through a very real and unique combination of prose and dialogue.

it did send me into a deep depression. but it was cathartic! would recommend ~

[Aurora Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so good! I actually think it's immediately shot to the top of my list of favorite books. I made a goodreads account just so I could review it. The formatting and the structure of the story and the dialogue and the characterization I don't even have coherent thoughts about it, but I AM immediately rereading it. Perez's writing style is incredible and I think anyone who wants to read about trauma and and self actualization and navigating mental health and relationships and just Existing should read it. I actually think everyone should read it.

[Rikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved inkskinned's work for years so I was incredibly excited to see that she had finally written a book! As a queer woman who struggles with mental illness, I saw a lot of myself in this book and it brought me a lot of comfort. This book truly made me feel things that I haven't felt while reading in a long time! It took me about a month to read it because I wanted to savor every page. Now that I've finished I can say that this is officially one of my favorite books and I look forward to seeing what else Rowan Perez writes in the future!

[Riley Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’m trying to figure out the difference between being a monster and being made into a monster”

Holy crap. I did not expect to be so absolutely captivated by this book. I picked it up solely on a good friend’s recomendation who loves reading Perez’s online work, and I have zero regrets.
I was expecting it to be metaphoric and hard to follow. It was not. Certain things are, intentionally, obscurred, but overall the story waa easy to follow and just. Amazing. It is heavily more character focused than plot focused, but it was all just. So real. Painfully so.
Please pick this up.

[Keri Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a very interesting book. At some points it was a little hard to follow because the narrator was unstable/untrustworthy but that’s what helped make the book good. It really gave an inside look on how OCD, religious trauma, addiction, eating disorders, and other mental health can be hidden especially when someone has the mentality that “others have it worse”. I really enjoyed how the narrator walked us through the ups and downs of her life. How little mentally ill comments would creep up into her every day conversations.

[Eren · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars (10/10)

Sometimes I forget I like reading. Sometimes I forget I like writing. I often forget bedrock-level things about myself; they're so all-encompassing I'm either engulfed in their shadow or I fully embody them. This is a book that's reignited both of those things.

I'm gonna write so fucking much. I will endeavor to create words as impactful as this. This is my new benchmark.

GAH so many good nuggets of poetry in here!!! Spliced with an unexpectedly gripping personal plot. I love women, glad you're doing better now

[Tayler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have followed inkskinned from my early years on tumblr and have read and grown with them for so many years, enraptured by everything they write. this book feels like sitting by the fireplace and listening to the recanting of a friends very real life. the way thoughts and feelings are affirmed and described felt kind and patient and truly i am grateful for this book in ways i could never articulate

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5
This book is an interesting combination of experiences that are very different to my life and observations that feel really on point and relatable. I'm not sure what to make of the bits between sections that feel more like poetry and I'm pretty sure I didn't get all of what is going on, but it was good reading experience.

[Maryann Veyon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart stopping beautiful narrative of pain and the choices you make and survival. I’ve been a fan of Rowan’s since 2015, reading her poetry on tumblr and the poetry collections she’s published. So many parts of this book have touched my soul, and I cannot wait to revisit to seek out more.

I cannot describe how deeply I feel about pages 267-269

[ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

"i'm trying to figure out the difference between being a monster and being made into a monster."

Devastating and beautiful all at once. Such a unique work. I want to read this again and again and again.

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When you ██ yourself, you'll be dead forever. And are you sure there's nothing left here for you? Are you really, really sure?"

A beautiful, relatable, touching account of suffering and survival. Perhaps my new favorite book.

[Lore · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75! I've been following the author on Tumblr for years, and I was so excited when my library got a copy of this. Beautifully written and so captivating. Going to be thinking about this one for a long time.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was probably a good book, I just dont think it was a good idea for me to read it. for some people I can imagine it would be cathartic, but at the recovery stage I’m in, reading this just put me in a bad headspace.
lots of beautiful evocative writing, but very intense.

[sorel · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book did something to me and i have to think about it before i can write about it.

[Becks · Rating 5 out of 5]

My god. Someone get this person another publishing deal I NEED MORE

[hundertmalzehntausend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply mesmerizing.