PARADISE LOGIC

Do any of us understand the modern dating world? Sophie Kemp’s debut novel is a bold, somewhat crazy and refreshingly new look at the complexities of navigating trying to find a partner and then be ‘the perfect girlfriend’.

The prologue by Kemp is almost like a stream of consciousness as she interprets her various versions of paradise and the idea for her story, introducing us to Reality whom she asks us to join her on her quest to search far and wide for the perfect boyfriend.

We are introduced to 22 year old Reality Kahn who lives in Brooklyn New York with two college friends, Soo-jin and Lord Byron. She is socially awkward (one imagines on the spectrum) who casually has sex and has never been in a serious long-term relationship. She makes her money as a waterslide model for commercials. One day, she makes it her mission to find a boyfriend 'to unlock goodness inside of the soul' and when she has, the quest is to be the perfect girlfriend. Her journey to do this is brutally cruel, dark and unbelievably sad. Kemp’s language is sublime and unusual. Reality consults her book “how to be the perfect woman” which she interprets in her own crazy way. “It was romance to be a boxcar gamine but that couldn’t be it. I didn’t even know how to play the accordion or weave.”

The first place Reality visits in search of a boyfriend is the indoor shopping mall but unsurprisingly she only attracts weirdos. Then at a party, she meets sad-eyed Ariel Koffman, a doctoral candidate specialising in the Assyrian Empire. Reality subjects herself to humiliating sexual acts (which may not be to everyone’s taste) to make herself totally available to him. Ariel gets Reality to try more dangerous drugs. To try and fit in, she tries to hang around with other girlfriends who persuade her to take more one more "ZZZZvx ULTRA (XR)" pills which results in severe side effects.

The inevitability of the outcome of this relationship makes Reality’s desperation the more tragic as she takes more of these pills resulting in more psychedelic episodes. Like her name implies, this is a reality check as she doesn’t live in the real world as we know it and by the end we find her conversing with a snake called Ungaro Ulaanbaatar in the desert of Mongolia where she is told it has been her destiny all along ‘to love incorrectly’. To conclude, in Reality’s own words, “when you’re twenty-three you will slum it for love.”

This book won’t be to everyone’s taste. There is no denying Kemp’s wonderful imagination and creative use of language. It is a highly original and a somewhat alarming exploration into the modern dating world which for most of us will be hard to comprehend. And it’s highly probable, that like us, you won’t always understand what’s going on, but if you’re in the mood for an alternative, dark, funny read then this is definitely worth a go. Den tip – we recommend reading this book on a kindle as we found there were numerous words we needed to look up!