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Bubbles
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Rahla Xenopoulos
4 books12 followersRahla Xenopoulos is the author of A Memoir of Love and Madness, and the novels Bubbles and Tribe. Many of her short stories have been published in magazines and in Women Flashing, Twist and Just Keep Breathing. She is the mother of triplets and lives in Cape Town.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 15, 2015
This was based on the life and times of glamour girl, Bubbles - but maybe just a bit too loosely? She was even murdered in a different way than in life. I did not find her character believable at all - no-one can be this naive. I did enjoy reading about Johannesburg in the early 1900's and so I rounded it up to 2 stars.
February 5, 2016
An eponymous fictional memoir, based on the real-life unsolved murder of 18-year-old Jacoba "Bubbles" Schroeder in Johannesburg, 1949.
Through amazing imaginative empathy and her lush, yet effortlessly readable writing style, Rahla transports us back in time. To a post-WW2, pre-apartheid era South-Africa; the half-hidden world of a good-time girl, her bookie, and the dearth of men willing to pay for the pleasure of her company. Plus her association with a well-connected and dangerously close-knit circle of young Jewish guys, that ultimately led to her untimely demise.
With a colourful collection of anachronistic euphemisms, and our protagonist’s steady stream of delightful malaphors and idiosyncrasies, I defy you not to fall in love with this version of the story...
"He put his arms around me; they were heavy and wrapped me up like a small parcel. I felt myself falling like Mimsy the cat must've fallen when she was dropped to the bottom of the river. His coat smelled like Dr Snyman talking and the shade of the willow trees in Lichtenburg. It smelled like Mrs Walker's baking and the back of Winnie's knees in the middle of the night, like the inside of the lift in John Orrs and the filters of my Viceroys. It smelled like the sun and it smelled like my dreams. It was dark inside his coat and I could hear his voice like a song."
It is also deliciously funny in places...
"I handed him the hanky and saw his thing had coiled up small now like a defeated animal."
Warning: If you are a prude, then 'Bubbles' is NOT for you. If, however, you want to learn how to give the world’s most sensational blowjob, then buckle up and enjoy the ride. Seriously, this little novel is more educational in parts than Jenna Jameson’s tome 'How to Make Love Like a Porn Star'. Without a shadow of a lie.
Through amazing imaginative empathy and her lush, yet effortlessly readable writing style, Rahla transports us back in time. To a post-WW2, pre-apartheid era South-Africa; the half-hidden world of a good-time girl, her bookie, and the dearth of men willing to pay for the pleasure of her company. Plus her association with a well-connected and dangerously close-knit circle of young Jewish guys, that ultimately led to her untimely demise.
With a colourful collection of anachronistic euphemisms, and our protagonist’s steady stream of delightful malaphors and idiosyncrasies, I defy you not to fall in love with this version of the story...
"He put his arms around me; they were heavy and wrapped me up like a small parcel. I felt myself falling like Mimsy the cat must've fallen when she was dropped to the bottom of the river. His coat smelled like Dr Snyman talking and the shade of the willow trees in Lichtenburg. It smelled like Mrs Walker's baking and the back of Winnie's knees in the middle of the night, like the inside of the lift in John Orrs and the filters of my Viceroys. It smelled like the sun and it smelled like my dreams. It was dark inside his coat and I could hear his voice like a song."
It is also deliciously funny in places...
"I handed him the hanky and saw his thing had coiled up small now like a defeated animal."
Warning: If you are a prude, then 'Bubbles' is NOT for you. If, however, you want to learn how to give the world’s most sensational blowjob, then buckle up and enjoy the ride. Seriously, this little novel is more educational in parts than Jenna Jameson’s tome 'How to Make Love Like a Porn Star'. Without a shadow of a lie.
April 19, 2013
I loved this book. Bubbles' story is not an easy one to experience, but Rahla Xenopoulos manages to draw you right into Lichtenburg, Vereeniging and Johannesburg in the late 1940s. Her vivid re-imagining of Jacoba Bubbles Schroeder's life has you firmly plonked down inside Bubbles' head, living and breathing and feeling whatever it that she is experiencing - every funny, awful, frustrating, horrible and even 'ag shame' part of it. From watching her mother and Aunt get drunk after a day's slog doing other people's washing to her taking those first steps into John Orr's in downtown Johannesburg, we are compelled to watch and observe and sometimes silently shout "Please don't, Bubbles, don't do that".
The story had me in a state of tense anxiety from the first chapter on through - I stopped reading only to eat and sleep. And after shutting down my Kindle, I sat quietly, letting it all sink into my heart. A day later, Bubbles still occupies most of my thoughts.
Bubbles' life reads like a tragedy every bit as relentless and inevitable as the tragedies of the Shakespearean heroes. It may be modern and its scale may be minute in comparison to the battlefields of Denmark or England, but Bubbles beckons her fate, even seduces it, in her quest for all the trappings of a life of glamour, a life of wealth, a life of furs and diamonds and a mansion in the Johannesburg suburbs. And in so doing, she engineers her own destiny.
At a time when it often seems as though the world is titling overly to a man's perspective, it is empowering to find a book that purposely and emphatically chooses an opposite point of view. In "Bubbles" the point of view is so unique that you will gasp at some of the events you experience. And then you may cry. Read it for the nail-biting tension, read it for the humour, read it for the uncomfortable echoing of our world today, just read it.
The story had me in a state of tense anxiety from the first chapter on through - I stopped reading only to eat and sleep. And after shutting down my Kindle, I sat quietly, letting it all sink into my heart. A day later, Bubbles still occupies most of my thoughts.
Bubbles' life reads like a tragedy every bit as relentless and inevitable as the tragedies of the Shakespearean heroes. It may be modern and its scale may be minute in comparison to the battlefields of Denmark or England, but Bubbles beckons her fate, even seduces it, in her quest for all the trappings of a life of glamour, a life of wealth, a life of furs and diamonds and a mansion in the Johannesburg suburbs. And in so doing, she engineers her own destiny.
At a time when it often seems as though the world is titling overly to a man's perspective, it is empowering to find a book that purposely and emphatically chooses an opposite point of view. In "Bubbles" the point of view is so unique that you will gasp at some of the events you experience. And then you may cry. Read it for the nail-biting tension, read it for the humour, read it for the uncomfortable echoing of our world today, just read it.
December 20, 2014
I've wanted to read this book since I heard the author comment in a radio interview soon after its release on the question of where to hide a body "Page 2 of a Google search since nobody ever looks there."
Part of the dedication reads: "For the girls who didn't make it to the silver screen and who got nervous and drank one too many, For the girls whose necklines were too low and whose skirts were too high, For those who couldn't bear sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring and those who just wanted to have fun, For the ones who went on the wrong date with the wrong boys. It's random, it could have been any one of us."
Based on the few known facts of Jacoba "Bubbles" Schroder whose body was found 30 hours after her disappearance in Johannesburg in 1949, the author recreates a fictionalised and very believable account of her life. (The location of her body would be in the news again 60 years later as the scene of the murder-suicide of mining tycoon Brett Kebble).
Bubbles is described with great sympathy as the naïve, country-girl who hopes to make it big in Johannesburg, but it ends up in tragedy.
Part of the dedication reads: "For the girls who didn't make it to the silver screen and who got nervous and drank one too many, For the girls whose necklines were too low and whose skirts were too high, For those who couldn't bear sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring and those who just wanted to have fun, For the ones who went on the wrong date with the wrong boys. It's random, it could have been any one of us."
Based on the few known facts of Jacoba "Bubbles" Schroder whose body was found 30 hours after her disappearance in Johannesburg in 1949, the author recreates a fictionalised and very believable account of her life. (The location of her body would be in the news again 60 years later as the scene of the murder-suicide of mining tycoon Brett Kebble).
Bubbles is described with great sympathy as the naïve, country-girl who hopes to make it big in Johannesburg, but it ends up in tragedy.
July 12, 2012
Review from my blog: The Word Fiend
Rating: 7
Bubbles is a novel that's difficult to classify. Part murder mystery, part historical and part drama it is Rahla Xenopoulos's re-imagining of what Bubbles Schroeder's life and death may have been like. Bubbles is a vibrantly written debut novel that holds the promise of a great career for Xenopoulos.
The cover design for Bubbles is delightful. The platinum blonde glamour girl on the cover looks out at the reader as though she has a delicious secret to share. She immediately puts you in mind of the 40s era in which the book is set and gives you a glimpse at what Bubbles may have been like. My compliments to the team at Penguin (South Africa) for this effective and uncluttered cover design.
I had previously read (and loved) Rahla Xenopoulos’s account of her struggle with bipolar disorder in A Memoir of Love and Madness. So when I was offered the opportunity to review her debut novel I leapt at the chance. The subject of the unsolved murder of Jacoba “Bubbles” Schroeder also intrigued me.
Rahla Xenopoulos’s writing is bold and confident, effortlessly transporting the reader back in time to the South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s. From Lichtenburg, through Vereenigng, and finally to the bright lights of Johannesburg; she brings the locations and people to life, providing a colourful and nuanced background to Bubbles’ story.
Bubbles is the story of Jacoba “Bubbles” Schroeder and how she may have ended up dead at the age of eighteen. Bubbles views the world through rose-tinted glasses, believing that she will be swept off her feet by a rich gentleman one day and that all of her troubles will then vanish. Unfortunately for her, life just doesn’t work that way. Bubbles eventually finds herself in Johannesburg, where she gets taken under the wing of a middle-aged bookie, Barry. So begins her life as a “glamour girl”, with days spent at the beauty parlour and evenings spent in the company of young men. I felt very protective of Bubbles, but I also found myself wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. She could be so incredibly naïve at times in a lifestyle that punishes that kind of blind faith.
Bubbles is a strong debut from a talented author and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.
Rating: 7
Bubbles is a novel that's difficult to classify. Part murder mystery, part historical and part drama it is Rahla Xenopoulos's re-imagining of what Bubbles Schroeder's life and death may have been like. Bubbles is a vibrantly written debut novel that holds the promise of a great career for Xenopoulos.
The cover design for Bubbles is delightful. The platinum blonde glamour girl on the cover looks out at the reader as though she has a delicious secret to share. She immediately puts you in mind of the 40s era in which the book is set and gives you a glimpse at what Bubbles may have been like. My compliments to the team at Penguin (South Africa) for this effective and uncluttered cover design.
I had previously read (and loved) Rahla Xenopoulos’s account of her struggle with bipolar disorder in A Memoir of Love and Madness. So when I was offered the opportunity to review her debut novel I leapt at the chance. The subject of the unsolved murder of Jacoba “Bubbles” Schroeder also intrigued me.
Rahla Xenopoulos’s writing is bold and confident, effortlessly transporting the reader back in time to the South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s. From Lichtenburg, through Vereenigng, and finally to the bright lights of Johannesburg; she brings the locations and people to life, providing a colourful and nuanced background to Bubbles’ story.
Bubbles is the story of Jacoba “Bubbles” Schroeder and how she may have ended up dead at the age of eighteen. Bubbles views the world through rose-tinted glasses, believing that she will be swept off her feet by a rich gentleman one day and that all of her troubles will then vanish. Unfortunately for her, life just doesn’t work that way. Bubbles eventually finds herself in Johannesburg, where she gets taken under the wing of a middle-aged bookie, Barry. So begins her life as a “glamour girl”, with days spent at the beauty parlour and evenings spent in the company of young men. I felt very protective of Bubbles, but I also found myself wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. She could be so incredibly naïve at times in a lifestyle that punishes that kind of blind faith.
Bubbles is a strong debut from a talented author and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.
April 16, 2013
Reading 'Bubbles' was like opening my first ever bottle of French perfume. I was assailed by the sweet and tragic scent of the life and death of a young girl in the late 1940's in South Africa. Her longing for the good life, for love and pretty things led to her 'unpunished accidental' death at the hands of a group of wealthy young men in Johannesburg. I absolutely adored it.
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October 19, 2012Didnt enjoy this book at all
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October 19, 2013'From early childhood I regarded myself as a great work of art.'
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews