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Crocodile Soup : A Novel
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350 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1999
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329 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
August 16, 2011
I liked this book a lot. It was interesting and readable and the author played with language in intriguing and poetic ways. It was almost like synesthesia, a neurological condition where the senses get their signals crossed, and people can taste the words they hear, or smell sounds. She writes like that, and I found it perpetually fresh and surprising.
The book's about the thin edge of the madness wedge, and twins, dysfunctional families, love, ghosts, mummies and heroes. It's about growing up as best you can under the circumstances.
The book's about the thin edge of the madness wedge, and twins, dysfunctional families, love, ghosts, mummies and heroes. It's about growing up as best you can under the circumstances.
November 1, 2017
Now THIS is the type of queer literature I've been looking for! Beautiful writing that tells a melancholy and strange story. (What I imagine Edward Carey would write if he were a lesbian, perhaps? I haven't read him in a while.) That being said, I wish I'd loved it more. I don't know what it lacked to truly get under my skin (in a good way), but overall it was a read I relished and was sad to finish.
March 12, 2025
I have tried, really tried, to like this book.
It has been on my to-read shelf for a few years now. It sounded intriguing and when I picked it up off the sales table and read a page or two at random, I liked that page or two.
I think the problem is that the style of writing, while fun for a paragraph or two, is very hard work. It is very floral writing, where it is all about the form and the substance is often confusingly irrelevant. Normally I would put one like this down, give it some time and then come back to it but this is at least the THIRD time I have done that and I think I am going to give up. I made it all the way to page 50 this time, but it was proving unenjoyable.
A review that I read about this book described it as being 'like Synesthesia', which is a condition where one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Now I can see why one would describe it that way, because the only real plot or character appears to be the English language so while you think you are reading a story about Gert, it becomes something else. To me it felt more like what I expect a bad LSD trip would be, confusing and annoying.
It has been on my to-read shelf for a few years now. It sounded intriguing and when I picked it up off the sales table and read a page or two at random, I liked that page or two.
I think the problem is that the style of writing, while fun for a paragraph or two, is very hard work. It is very floral writing, where it is all about the form and the substance is often confusingly irrelevant. Normally I would put one like this down, give it some time and then come back to it but this is at least the THIRD time I have done that and I think I am going to give up. I made it all the way to page 50 this time, but it was proving unenjoyable.
A review that I read about this book described it as being 'like Synesthesia', which is a condition where one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Now I can see why one would describe it that way, because the only real plot or character appears to be the English language so while you think you are reading a story about Gert, it becomes something else. To me it felt more like what I expect a bad LSD trip would be, confusing and annoying.
June 8, 2023
hmmmmm.
i am giving this 3.5 stars in my brain, and rounding them up to 4.
i feel like, if this was published in the year of our lord 2023, it would join the ranks of books like Milkfed, Pizza Girl, and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. it was a Weird story, capital W, but one that i very much enjoyed. i think. i'm almost positive. do you ever read books that leave you that way? with a muddled brain, trying to remember all of the little details so that you can follow the cut and looping ribbon of the story? it's a good muddling, though, i'm almost sure of it. i zoomed through this, finishing it in an easy 24 hours. it was disjointed, but came together, in the end. it was eccentric and unique and Weird.
you did it, gert.
did what?
you grew up.
i am giving this 3.5 stars in my brain, and rounding them up to 4.
i feel like, if this was published in the year of our lord 2023, it would join the ranks of books like Milkfed, Pizza Girl, and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. it was a Weird story, capital W, but one that i very much enjoyed. i think. i'm almost positive. do you ever read books that leave you that way? with a muddled brain, trying to remember all of the little details so that you can follow the cut and looping ribbon of the story? it's a good muddling, though, i'm almost sure of it. i zoomed through this, finishing it in an easy 24 hours. it was disjointed, but came together, in the end. it was eccentric and unique and Weird.
you did it, gert.
did what?
you grew up.
October 19, 2025
I have no idea how I cam across this book, it may have been a cheap offer on Kindle, but I'm very glad I did. I really enjoyed its weirdness, mostly because of the very vivid use of language. On every page there were sentences that I went back and read more than once, to savour. Not a common experience. By a strange coincidence the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre weekly poem was by the same author:
https://weeklypoems.brookes.ac.uk/201...
On reading that she had died, I felt rather sad.
https://weeklypoems.brookes.ac.uk/201...
On reading that she had died, I felt rather sad.
November 17, 2020
A really beautifully written book. Reading it was like being inside a dream, there’s sense and understanding but not always quite within grasp. Gert is such a likeable character, even with her numerous flaws and meltdowns. The book is relationship-driven examining Gert’s strained relationship with her mother. I even reread the beginning of the book to find further layers and meanings once I had finished. Gert’s mother, Jean, is placed as the antagonist, but upon rereading the start, I was able to see how Jean could have been misunderstood and that in the end, she’s only human.
August 31, 2022
I enjoyed the process of reading this book, but when it was done I wasn't sure I like the book. If that doesn't make sense, that is the whole feeling I had experienced while reading. The writing is beautiful, and the story of the main character's life through the present and past recollections are heavily metaphoric, but in the end, I am not sure I understand what happened.
February 3, 2024
I didn’t expect to get teary eyed at the end, but here we are.
December 5, 2025
This felt so refreshing to read even though i was confused by some of the plot points but that didn’t change the fact that this book is something special
May 7, 2025
When buying used books at a thrift store there’s very little chance of finding the exact titles on my ‘to read’ list; but for as little as $1.99 I can pick up five random volumes for around ten dollars, and even if only one of them turns out to be a winner, it’s worth the trip.
Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling leapt out at me from the shelf surrounded by other tattered, abandoned paperbacks not quite good enough to resell on Amazon. I’d never heard of Darling, but the cover has a quirky, retro style and an artist’s rendering of a bowl of red-orange tomato soup with a small green crocodile swimming in the center. I flipped through its pages and noticed several short chapters, some less than a page long. I figured, if nothing else I’d be able to quickly determine whether or not to keep reading. (I have very little compunction over abandoning novels that don’t turn me on.)
In fact, this book turned out to be such a delight, it has inspired me to start a new category of blog posts called “Q Reviews” so I could document the cool shit I’ve been reading without having to depend on Goodreads (a website that I consider toxic and weird) to keep track of my reviews.
Crocodile Soup is about a thirty-something queer woman named Gert who works in a museum and is estranged from her mother. With a narrative alternating between the ‘present’ and the past, we learn about Gert’s life, her adventures growing up, and her internal struggle to resolve whatever has happened between her and her mom. We also see her struggle with mental health, relationships and her career. In short, Gert is a weird but lovable hot mess.
Darling was also a poet, so despite the contemporary subject-matter and quirkiness of the characters, the prose in this novel has a lovely, musical quality about it:
“In the evening the two women laughed so loudly that the china dinner sets rattled in the cupboards. Mabel was unmooring Jean. She was quite oblivious to the fact that she was a mother.
Frank looked at the two women as if they were shooting stars.
Sometimes Jean stopped laughing and her eyes rested on Frank as if she had just found a shell on a beach.
She looked at me as if I was a letter she had forgotten to post.”
The entire story has an unabashed absurdity that tips over into the surreal, tinged with melancholy and expressed with precise language that will have you going back and re-reading sections just because they are so fresh and well-composed.
After finishing, I went to look up Julia Darling with the intention of following her on social media. I found out she was from the UK and grew up in the house where Jane Austen lived at the time of her death. Darling herself died in the 90s from breast cancer. She’d written both poetry and fiction and won some prestigious awards and was well-regarded by her peers. Initially I was disappointed that she was no longer living so I could thank her for her book, but I quickly began to marvel at how alive this writing made me feel – and how incredible it is that someone can still impact the lives of others even after they’re gone from this world.
This, I decided, is why we write.
Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling leapt out at me from the shelf surrounded by other tattered, abandoned paperbacks not quite good enough to resell on Amazon. I’d never heard of Darling, but the cover has a quirky, retro style and an artist’s rendering of a bowl of red-orange tomato soup with a small green crocodile swimming in the center. I flipped through its pages and noticed several short chapters, some less than a page long. I figured, if nothing else I’d be able to quickly determine whether or not to keep reading. (I have very little compunction over abandoning novels that don’t turn me on.)
In fact, this book turned out to be such a delight, it has inspired me to start a new category of blog posts called “Q Reviews” so I could document the cool shit I’ve been reading without having to depend on Goodreads (a website that I consider toxic and weird) to keep track of my reviews.
Crocodile Soup is about a thirty-something queer woman named Gert who works in a museum and is estranged from her mother. With a narrative alternating between the ‘present’ and the past, we learn about Gert’s life, her adventures growing up, and her internal struggle to resolve whatever has happened between her and her mom. We also see her struggle with mental health, relationships and her career. In short, Gert is a weird but lovable hot mess.
Darling was also a poet, so despite the contemporary subject-matter and quirkiness of the characters, the prose in this novel has a lovely, musical quality about it:
“In the evening the two women laughed so loudly that the china dinner sets rattled in the cupboards. Mabel was unmooring Jean. She was quite oblivious to the fact that she was a mother.
Frank looked at the two women as if they were shooting stars.
Sometimes Jean stopped laughing and her eyes rested on Frank as if she had just found a shell on a beach.
She looked at me as if I was a letter she had forgotten to post.”
The entire story has an unabashed absurdity that tips over into the surreal, tinged with melancholy and expressed with precise language that will have you going back and re-reading sections just because they are so fresh and well-composed.
After finishing, I went to look up Julia Darling with the intention of following her on social media. I found out she was from the UK and grew up in the house where Jane Austen lived at the time of her death. Darling herself died in the 90s from breast cancer. She’d written both poetry and fiction and won some prestigious awards and was well-regarded by her peers. Initially I was disappointed that she was no longer living so I could thank her for her book, but I quickly began to marvel at how alive this writing made me feel – and how incredible it is that someone can still impact the lives of others even after they’re gone from this world.
This, I decided, is why we write.
May 5, 2024
I picked this up from the free bookshop in Sale, so it's quite a random read. I found this book odd but I still followed the storyline well. The book is written from the perspective of Gert, who seems to be living a confusing life and constantly, but accidentally, upsetting people. I feel for her as she does not seem like a bad person but seems to behave oddly at times, which made me not so keen on her. Gert's mum seems quite terrible and does not understand or empathise with her daughter much at all.
As the whole book is written from the perspective of someone who does not appear to think the same way as others, I found myself wondering what I would think of Gert if I met her in real life. But of course, we will never know.
As the whole book is written from the perspective of someone who does not appear to think the same way as others, I found myself wondering what I would think of Gert if I met her in real life. But of course, we will never know.
June 25, 2021
This books writing was unlike something I had ever seen before and I really liked it! That being said I don’t think it’s for everyone, it’s strange at times confusing and has a heavy use of metaphor. All of which I think heighten the story of the main character and the themes. The themes of this book deal with lonely childhoods, grief, sexuality, abd maybe most importantly the idea of “growing up” and how all that effects you in childhood and follows you into adulthood.
July 8, 2018
Uncomfortable in a strangely comfortable way.
Read in august.
Beautifully strung together words and phrases.
Easy and addicting to read, as every chapter is taut and 2-3 pages.
Reminds me of A House On Mango Street.
Simultaneously psychotic youth, and single middle adulthood.
Read in august.
Beautifully strung together words and phrases.
Easy and addicting to read, as every chapter is taut and 2-3 pages.
Reminds me of A House On Mango Street.
Simultaneously psychotic youth, and single middle adulthood.
October 1, 2019
Well written and intriguing but ultimately a bit confusing and disappointing. I wanted to like it more then I did.
July 28, 2024
Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling leapt out at me from the shelf surrounded by other tattered, abandoned paperbacks not quite good enough to resell on Amazon. I’d never heard of Darling, but the cover has a quirky, retro style and an artist’s rendering of a bowl of red-orange tomato soup with a small green crocodile swimming in the center. I flipped through its pages and noticed several short chapters, some less than a page long. I figured, if nothing else I’d be able to quickly determine whether or not to keep reading. (I have very little compunction over abandoning novels that don’t turn me on.)
In fact, this book turned out to be such a delight, it has inspired me to start a new category of blog posts called “Q Reviews” so I could document the cool shit I’ve been reading without having to depend on Goodreads (a website that I consider toxic and weird) to keep track of my reviews.
Crocodile Soup is about a thirty-something queer woman named Gert who works in a museum and is estranged from her mother. With a narrative alternating between the ‘present’ and the past, we learn about Gert’s life, her adventures growing up, and her internal struggle to resolve whatever has happened between her and her mom. We also see her struggle with mental health, relationships and her career. In short, Gert is a weird but lovable hot mess.
Darling was also a poet, so despite the contemporary subject-matter and quirkiness of the characters, the prose in this novel has a lovely, musical quality about it:
“In the evening the two women laughed so loudly that the china dinner sets rattled in the cupboards. Mabel was unmooring Jean. She was quite oblivious to the fact that she was a mother.
Frank looked at the two women as if they were shooting stars.
Sometimes Jean stopped laughing and her eyes rested on Frank as if she had just found a shell on a beach.
She looked at me as if I was a letter she had forgotten to post.”
The entire story has an unabashed absurdity that tips over into the surreal, tinged with melancholy and expressed with precise language that will have you going back and re-reading sections just because they are so fresh and well-composed.
After finishing, I went to look up Julia Darling with the intention of following her on social media. I found out she was from the UK and grew up in the house where Jane Austen lived at the time of her death. Darling herself died in the 90s from breast cancer. She’d written both poetry and fiction and won some prestigious awards and was well-regarded by her peers. Initially I was disappointed that she was no longer living so I could thank her for her book, but I quickly began to marvel at how alive this writing made me feel – and how incredible it is that someone can still impact the lives of others even after they’re gone from this world.
This, I decided, is why we write.
In fact, this book turned out to be such a delight, it has inspired me to start a new category of blog posts called “Q Reviews” so I could document the cool shit I’ve been reading without having to depend on Goodreads (a website that I consider toxic and weird) to keep track of my reviews.
Crocodile Soup is about a thirty-something queer woman named Gert who works in a museum and is estranged from her mother. With a narrative alternating between the ‘present’ and the past, we learn about Gert’s life, her adventures growing up, and her internal struggle to resolve whatever has happened between her and her mom. We also see her struggle with mental health, relationships and her career. In short, Gert is a weird but lovable hot mess.
Darling was also a poet, so despite the contemporary subject-matter and quirkiness of the characters, the prose in this novel has a lovely, musical quality about it:
“In the evening the two women laughed so loudly that the china dinner sets rattled in the cupboards. Mabel was unmooring Jean. She was quite oblivious to the fact that she was a mother.
Frank looked at the two women as if they were shooting stars.
Sometimes Jean stopped laughing and her eyes rested on Frank as if she had just found a shell on a beach.
She looked at me as if I was a letter she had forgotten to post.”
The entire story has an unabashed absurdity that tips over into the surreal, tinged with melancholy and expressed with precise language that will have you going back and re-reading sections just because they are so fresh and well-composed.
After finishing, I went to look up Julia Darling with the intention of following her on social media. I found out she was from the UK and grew up in the house where Jane Austen lived at the time of her death. Darling herself died in the 90s from breast cancer. She’d written both poetry and fiction and won some prestigious awards and was well-regarded by her peers. Initially I was disappointed that she was no longer living so I could thank her for her book, but I quickly began to marvel at how alive this writing made me feel – and how incredible it is that someone can still impact the lives of others even after they’re gone from this world.
This, I decided, is why we write.
December 28, 2025
3.5/4? Occasionally I will come across a book that I struggle to rate. This book, for instance, connected with me in a way that makes in difficult for me to rate it accurately. I struggled with parts of it, it is eccentric to say the least. The chapters and sentences themselves are pretty episodic, they flowed in such a way that meant I struggled to connect with the narrative as well as put the book down, I read it in multiple 100pg bursts. I really enjoyed the last 100 pages, not sure what changed my mind. The author’s background (growing up in Jane Austen’s house among other things) interested me enough originally to keep going despite my thoughts on the writing and most of all, the period of my life at which I read this book and my memories surrounding this time, mean I don’t think I will be getting rid of this book anytime soon. It reminded me of how much i like the idea finding books second hand, with absolutely no idea of the what it may contain. One of my 2026 goals is to stop the internet from dictating what I should or shouldn’t read. Thank you Julia Darling
May 1, 2023
This novel has a style all its own - the most original writing I've come across for a long time. It has a Y-shaped plot, initially alternating between the narrator's (difficult) childhood and constant conflict with her twin, and her adulthood as a museum curator in conflict with an age in which museums are changing from branches of academia to entertainment for a lowest-common-denominator public.
"I'm a haunted lesbian!" the narrator wails as the two threads wind themselves together, and I think that sums up the book - it's a story about a haunted lesbian and the unexpected way she puts her old ghosts to rest. Very entertaining, both as a story, and for the wild, creative and often amusing style it's told in.
"I'm a haunted lesbian!" the narrator wails as the two threads wind themselves together, and I think that sums up the book - it's a story about a haunted lesbian and the unexpected way she puts her old ghosts to rest. Very entertaining, both as a story, and for the wild, creative and often amusing style it's told in.
April 28, 2023
One of the most interesting books I’ve read this year so far. So fascinating.
I love how Gert constantly refers back to the attic bedroom. It’s like it’s a meaning for the whole reason she grew up the way she did, and how that effects her life when she’s a lot older and grown up.
You find out a lot more towards the end about frank (Gerts brother) which I preferred as there was a lot of loose ends with him throughout the book.
I think I will remember this book forever.
It has a mixed sense of nostalgia and trauma.
Two feelings I didn’t think could be put together in a book and written about so beautifully.
I love how Gert constantly refers back to the attic bedroom. It’s like it’s a meaning for the whole reason she grew up the way she did, and how that effects her life when she’s a lot older and grown up.
You find out a lot more towards the end about frank (Gerts brother) which I preferred as there was a lot of loose ends with him throughout the book.
I think I will remember this book forever.
It has a mixed sense of nostalgia and trauma.
Two feelings I didn’t think could be put together in a book and written about so beautifully.
January 20, 2025
A strange book, but one that pulls you in as you need to know how it all relates. It goes from chapter to chapter alternating between the lead characters childhood and present day, with stories incidents and accidents. The language is descriptive and colourful, you can almost visualise it (and smell and taste!). The characters are larger than life, and you have to wonder how much was real and how much exaggerated over time.
Recommended for those looking for something different.
Recommended for those looking for something different.
October 5, 2019
I love the poetry of this book and its weird characters. I find their world fascinating thanks to Darling’s imagination and the way she works with language. Coming out, coming of age and mental illness and its fuzzy outlines seem to be the main issues addressed in this novel.
Four star rating mainly because sometimes the story becomes too scattered and difficult to follow.
Four star rating mainly because sometimes the story becomes too scattered and difficult to follow.
February 23, 2021
A journey backwards and forwards through the life of a young girl with a very strange upbringing. Awkward relationships abound, a twin brother with mental issues, absent father and emotionally absent mother. Odd friendships and observations...
On the positive once you finish the book you realise just how boringly normal your own childhood was!!!
On the positive once you finish the book you realise just how boringly normal your own childhood was!!!
November 27, 2022
I thought this was an unusual and beautifully written novel - the author is a poet, and that really comes through with the imagery and sparsity of language. Sadly the book appears to be out of print now.
May 31, 2025
Tells the lifestory of the viewpoint character by alternating between her childhood and the present. Intense and spooky, often purposely ambiguous as to what represents the consensus reality of its fictional world and what is a figment of the narrator's madness.
January 23, 2018
A lot of this book was spent asking myself "what am i reading?" as it is so bizarre..but in a fascinating, i must read more kind of way.
March 23, 2019
Fine bit funny unique
April 3, 2019
i really really really loved this book and i wish it was longer tbh!!!!!! was i confused by the flashbacks? sometimes!!!! anyway i love lesbians and i love female characters with mommy issues
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October 31, 2021i really really really loved this book and i wish it was longer tbh!!!!!! was i confused by the flashbacks? sometimes!!!! anyway i love lesbians and i love female characters with mommy issues
July 13, 2023
Interesting and captivating words descriptions and scenarios
August 2, 2023
This was a really strange book and I'm glad I read it!
April 8, 2024
I liked it, kinda spooky and quirky and low-key depressing but I liked it
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews