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A review by kris_mccracken
Modern Marriage by Filip Vukasin
1.0
Filip Vukasin’s “Modern Marriage” is less a novel and more a Frankenstein’s monster of bad ideas stitched together with botched metaphors and embalmed in its own self-importance. Now, I normally avoid spoilers in reviews, but, y’know, fuck this book.
Let’s start with the premise - a woman spiralling after her husband’s sudden death - because it sounds like it should have emotional heft. Instead, we get a hollow paean to cosmetic surgery that reads like it was funded by a Botox clinic’s marketing department. The book’s underlying message appears to be that physical perfection might just heal emotional devastation, which is as shallow as it is morally repugnant. If you’ve ever wondered whether the beauty industry has gone too far, this book will answer with a resounding, “Not far enough! Scalpel, please!”
And the characters. Jesus H. Christ, the characters! Rachael, the therapist sister-in-law, is so vile that it’s hard to believe she isn’t intended as some Machiavellian villain. Instead, the author appears to think she’s just a straight-talking bestie. This woman is a therapist? A mother? FUCKING HELL. Someone call the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency as well as Child Protection before she prescribes collagen fillers to cure depression.
Then there’s Klara, the main character, whose psychological depth could be measured with a paddle-pop stick. She actually blames her vulva for its failure to manifest a baby and for, apparently, turning her husband gay. It must be quite the vulva. I'm intrigued, was a single woman consulted before this was written? It reads less like insight into a female perspective and more like the deranged ramblings of someone who’s only ever met women through reality TV.
Tomas, meanwhile, is the novel's moral compass. Yes, our moral compass is mostly concerned that Klara isn’t getting enough cosmetic procedures to properly advertise their clinic. Within weeks of her husband’s death, he’s fretting about her face, her weight, and her failure to keep pace with her filler schedule. Is this satire? It’s impossible to tell.
The prose is no saving grace either, slathered in mixed metaphors like a surgeon performing brain surgery with a stethoscope and calling it a heart-to-heart. It’s florid when it needs restraint, plodding when it needs momentum, and occasionally so bad it veers into comedy. But even this grim amusement can’t salvage the sheer ineptitude on display.
Content-wise, what's the word I'm groping for? Disturbing? Exploitative? No, I'll need two: "utterly mishandled". Child pregnancy? Incest? Genital mutilation? They’re all here, flung about like props in a freak show, treated as narrative shortcuts rather than deeply complex issues. It’s as though the author compiled a list of edgy topics and ticked them off one by one, hoping the shock factor would cover for the lack of substance. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Grief, supposedly the emotional core of the novel, is treated with about as much weight as a rescheduled dentist appointment. Klara’s abortion, which should have carried emotional and thematic resonance, is instead glossed over like an afterthought. Even the fallout from her sister-in-law finding out about it fizzles into nothing, a narrative damp squib.
The ending? It’s not so much a climax as it is the literary equivalent of walking into a glass door. After slogging through the melodrama, the overwrought trauma, and the soap opera theatrics, you’re left staring at the final page in disbelief, wondering why you bothered. It’s not just bad, it’s incoherent, an existential crisis masquerading as fiction.
“Modern Marriage” is a spectacular failure. It’s confused about its own purpose, insensitive in its treatment of heavy topics, and riddled with unlikeable characters who feel less human and more like grotesque caricatures. I'll give it half a star for the sheer audacity of publishing this trainwreck, and even that feels generous.
1/2
Let’s start with the premise - a woman spiralling after her husband’s sudden death - because it sounds like it should have emotional heft. Instead, we get a hollow paean to cosmetic surgery that reads like it was funded by a Botox clinic’s marketing department. The book’s underlying message appears to be that physical perfection might just heal emotional devastation, which is as shallow as it is morally repugnant. If you’ve ever wondered whether the beauty industry has gone too far, this book will answer with a resounding, “Not far enough! Scalpel, please!”
And the characters. Jesus H. Christ, the characters! Rachael, the therapist sister-in-law, is so vile that it’s hard to believe she isn’t intended as some Machiavellian villain. Instead, the author appears to think she’s just a straight-talking bestie. This woman is a therapist? A mother? FUCKING HELL. Someone call the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency as well as Child Protection before she prescribes collagen fillers to cure depression.
Then there’s Klara, the main character, whose psychological depth could be measured with a paddle-pop stick. She actually blames her vulva for its failure to manifest a baby and for, apparently, turning her husband gay. It must be quite the vulva. I'm intrigued, was a single woman consulted before this was written? It reads less like insight into a female perspective and more like the deranged ramblings of someone who’s only ever met women through reality TV.
Tomas, meanwhile, is the novel's moral compass. Yes, our moral compass is mostly concerned that Klara isn’t getting enough cosmetic procedures to properly advertise their clinic. Within weeks of her husband’s death, he’s fretting about her face, her weight, and her failure to keep pace with her filler schedule. Is this satire? It’s impossible to tell.
The prose is no saving grace either, slathered in mixed metaphors like a surgeon performing brain surgery with a stethoscope and calling it a heart-to-heart. It’s florid when it needs restraint, plodding when it needs momentum, and occasionally so bad it veers into comedy. But even this grim amusement can’t salvage the sheer ineptitude on display.
Content-wise, what's the word I'm groping for? Disturbing? Exploitative? No, I'll need two: "utterly mishandled". Child pregnancy? Incest? Genital mutilation? They’re all here, flung about like props in a freak show, treated as narrative shortcuts rather than deeply complex issues. It’s as though the author compiled a list of edgy topics and ticked them off one by one, hoping the shock factor would cover for the lack of substance. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Grief, supposedly the emotional core of the novel, is treated with about as much weight as a rescheduled dentist appointment. Klara’s abortion, which should have carried emotional and thematic resonance, is instead glossed over like an afterthought. Even the fallout from her sister-in-law finding out about it fizzles into nothing, a narrative damp squib.
The ending? It’s not so much a climax as it is the literary equivalent of walking into a glass door. After slogging through the melodrama, the overwrought trauma, and the soap opera theatrics, you’re left staring at the final page in disbelief, wondering why you bothered. It’s not just bad, it’s incoherent, an existential crisis masquerading as fiction.
“Modern Marriage” is a spectacular failure. It’s confused about its own purpose, insensitive in its treatment of heavy topics, and riddled with unlikeable characters who feel less human and more like grotesque caricatures. I'll give it half a star for the sheer audacity of publishing this trainwreck, and even that feels generous.
1/2