I personally loved this book, more than any other love story. To me, it is more real than any other love story. It follows a whole life of love, and does not just end when they marry or have sex. It follows the relationship through all the rejections, rapes, and hotel rooms. This story does not buy into the myth of a perfect relationship. If anything it says there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Each character is deep and layered. Neither are stereotypes. At times, I could just murder the bad girl for what she does; however, I’m mystified by his obsession with the bad girl and wonder why he never moves on to a “normal” girl. Like when he keeps her toothbrush she accidently leaves at his apartment, an he finds more hidden meaning in this most likely accidental gesture. He “caresses the little Guerlain toothbrush she left in his apartment…which he always kept with him, like an amulet” (85).
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Bad Girl never goes by her own name; all names are her husband’s, which signify ownership. The men give her an identity in her life, her various husbands, and even Ricardito gives the fitting name “the bad girl.” She forms her personality based on the man she is with currently. Ricardito says, “What did she call herself now? What personality, what name, what history had she adopted for this new stage in her life?” (64). Ricardito tells her he loves her all the time, and she always has a witty and deep response. She asks him, “In love with me with knowing me? Do you mean that for ten years you’ve been hoping that one day a girl like me would turn up in your life?” (28).
. . .
Ricardito is a very passive, but passionate about the bad girl. He is not a go-getter, he is simple only wanting to live in Paris and be with the bad girl. It will take him a while to ever realize that is not enough. It will take many years and hurts until his puppy love lessens for the bad girl. Even then, he is always willing to forgive any of her wrongdoings, after she pleads with him enough. Bad Girl always comes back; she does not find satisfaction in her rich husbands/ lovers. Something about the idea of someone who will always love her and be there for her is appealing, if not just because she is flattered.
Ricardito has a strange attraction to the bad girl no matter what horrible thing she does. No matter how many men she marries, he is so content to just be with her, it makes him overjoyed. Without her, his life is empty and meaningless. She does not love him, for she repeats this multiple times through out the novel. Ricardito reflects during sex, “She spoke with so much coldness that she didn’t seem like a girl making love but a doctor formulating a technical description, detached from pleasure. I didn’t care I was totally happy, as I hadn’t been in a long time, perhaps not ever” (51). A lot of doctor language is used in the novel, the bad girl needs a doctor because she does not love in a world where everyone is searching for and falling in love. She is distant and detached from love. She coldness is juxtaposed with Ricardito’s puppy love.
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I’m sorry if this post is too long, but I have a lot to say about the Bad Girl…
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