Lady: My Lady as a Bitch - Softcover

Burgess, Melvin

3.01

866 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783443030 ISBN 13: 9781783443031

Publisher: Andersen Press, 2015

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Honest, original and utterly filthy, Lady: My Life as a Bitch follows Sandra -- a seventeen-year-old girl who doesn't run with the pack.

If you gotta be a dog, be a bitch.

Sandra Francy is seventeen and under pressure -- pressure to be good and work hard at school. But she's fed up with all that. She's been having fun, running wild -- some say too wild. Then she gets turned into a dog. She's frightened at first, but she quickly realises there are pleasures she hardly knew existed. Is being human worth all the effort?

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Review:

Controversial and award-winning British author Melvin Burgess (Smack, Bloodtide, etc.) is in fine form in his brilliant, satirical novel about a hedonistic teenage girl who is turned into a dog by a mysteriously magical town drunk. Sandra (a.k.a. Lady) is dismayed at first, but quickly discovers the pure joys of unfettered freedom to do whatever she wants and have sex with whomever she pleases--a seemingly perfect scenario for a devil-may-care young woman who would "have shagged [Wayne] up against the wall for a bag of jelly beans a month ago."

Hooking up with a couple other humans-turned-dogs, Lady roams the streets and, well, does what doggies do: "One thing about dogs--they know how to greet someone. It's not so much scratch and sniff as sniff and lick--as soon as you see someone, you just gotta know what they taste like!" Her new life is not without inner turmoil, however. Part of her longs to return to her human life, annoying family, standardized school testing, boy-of-the-day "romances," and all. Living as a dog helps her study what it means to live as a human--with the responsibilities, silly inhibitions, stress, and worry that mark that species--but also the flip side: the security and love of her family.

Ultimately the decisions Sandra/Lady makes may be shocking, but Burgess's voice is undeniably, ruthlessly authentic. Readers in search of a traditionally moralistic diatribe against the reckless promiscuity of today's youth will need to look elsewhere. But those seeking a funny, sensual, and honest exploration of real teenage life and a much more intense and complex study of humanity will revel in the author's expertly crafted allegory. As Burgess himself says, "even someone who doesn't know what an allegory is will recognize that Lady is not a piece of advice, or a suggestion on how to govern your life; it's simply a way of trying to make people think about the ways in which we define work and play." Highly recommended. (Ages 14 and older) --Emilie Coulter

About the Author:

MELVIN BURGESS was born in London and brought up in Surrey and Sussex. He has had a variety of jobs before becoming a full-time writer. Before his first novel, he had short stories published and a play broadcast on Radio 4. He is now regarded as one of the best writers in contemporary children's literature, having won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for his acclaimed novel Junk.

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