My Hundred Lovers by Susan Johnson

Who were the greatest loves of your life? The ones that awakened every sense? The ones that you still dream about from time to time, fantasise about? The ones that you could encounter after years of absence and still get a tingle in the pit of your stomach? Did you appreciate that distinct buzz of a special love at the time you had it in your life, or is the memory perhaps sweeter than the reality?

A woman, on the eve of her fiftieth birthday, reflects on one hundred moments from a lifetime's sensual adventures. After the love, hatred and despair are done with, the great and trivial acts of her bodily life reveal an imperfect, yet whole self. By turns humorous, sharp, haunting and wise, this is an original and exhilarating novel from one of Australia's premier writers.
Lyrical and exquisite, My Hundred Lovers captures the sheer wonder of life, desire and love.

I loved the idea of this book, what a fantastic way to remember various parts of your life, like random snapshots of yourself shown haphazardly in no real order.

It was a sensory experience reading this "That afternoon in the small bedroom the light was blue. The curtains were cream and blew softly in the wind. There was a cry, far off, almost out of earshot. There was a man in my bed and I did not know how he got there." and we were shown a glimpse in to the life that belonged to Deborah, a normal 'young girl' who wasn't shown how to value herself other than through her body. 

It is a work of fiction but Johnson writes so honestly and with so much personality that for the first part of the book I thought it was a memoir - It felt like I was reading her private diary, lyrical and poetically written mini memories, sometime sweet, sometimes surprisingly bitter. 

A book most would enjoy and gain something from on an individual level, especially if you like looking in through the window into other peoples lives.