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Blood and Guts in High School

By Kathy Acker
Penguin Classics
Series: Penguin Modern Classics
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3.46 goodreads logo

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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker follows the chaotic journey of a young girl named Janey as she navigates her tumultuous life filled with rebellion and self-discovery. Set against a backdrop of seedy realism and surreal fantasies, the novel explores themes of power, identity, and the subjugation of women, offering a challenging narrative that combines prose with graphic elements. Acker's work is known for its non-linear structure and vivid experimental style.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you appreciate experimental fiction that challenges conventional narrative structures with a blend of prose, poetry, and graphic elements. It could appeal to readers interested in avant-garde literature that explores themes of identity, sexuality, and societal critique with raw intensity and originality.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The book that shocked a generation and introduced Kathy Acker as the enfant terrible of the 1980s literary underground.

This is a book about feminism, capitalism, sex, punk, youth, the city, the literary giants, anger, infatuation, and the USA. A teenage coming-of-age story and a glorious, delirious patchwork of prose, poetry, drama, plagiarism, and illustration.

Childlike sexual drawings pepper the book, along with Acker's surreal, minutely detailed, annotated 'dream maps'. Hugely controversial upon its publication in 1984, Blood and Guts in High School has lost none of its power to shock and is still revered by readers today.

Series: Penguin Modern Classics

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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School is recognised for pushing boundaries in literature, blending postmodern elements with provocative themes such as incest and paedophilia, drawing readers into a complex, avant-garde narrative. Acker's work challenges the distinctions between poetry and novels, high culture and popular trash, and literature and art, earning her a reputation as a rebel and innovator. Her writing is often described as raw, chaotic, and daring, with a unique ability to engage the reader through its emotional intensity and cultural commentary.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241302514

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 31 August 2017

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 10.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 132g

Pages: 176

Collections

Best Sellers at Book Hero Fiction General Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Kathy Acker Literary Fiction New Release Fiction Penguin Books Penguin Classics Penguin Classics: General Fiction Series: Penguin Modern Classics

About the Author

Kathy Acker was born in 1947 and was raised in New York City. In her twenties she broke ties with her family and worked as a stripper, while writing and publishing in the underground literary scene. The 1984 publication of Blood and Guts in High School caused a sensation - the book was at the centre of a surge of media attention. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, she abandoned Western medicine after a traumatic experience of surgery. She died in an alternative cancer clinic in Tijuana, Mexico in 1997.Her major novels include Blood and Guts in High School, Great Expectations, Don Quixote and Pussy, King of the Pirates. A collection of her emails with cultural theorist McKenzie Wark was published in 2015, titled I'm Very into You.

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