Exquisite Mariposa

by Fiona Alison Duncan

Given the initials F.A.D. at birth, Fiona Alison Duncan has always had an eye for observing the trends around her. But after years of trying to please others, looking for answers in books and astrological charts, and clocking endless hours as a celebrity journalist just to make rent, Fiona discovers another way of existing: in the Real, a phenomenological state few humans live in.

Fiona's journey to the Real takes her to Koreatown, Los Angeles, where she sublets a room in La Mariposa. There she meets a cast of friends and lovers, like Amalia, an artist whose muse is her pet pigeon; Lucien, an infamous philanderer; and Morgan, whose anxiety keeps her from ever sitting still. When Fiona is offered the chance to turn her new household into a reality TV show, she jumps at the opportunity―but it isn't long before she begins to question this new script.

In the midst of her Saturn Return, Fiona pulls the plug on the reality TV deal, heals a few addictions, and returns to writing with Exquisite Mariposa, a debut novel starring her housemates as they ask questions of survival, art, love, language, and the possibilities of rewriting one's life.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Bisexual, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2019

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not to my taste, she says politely.

But maybe you will appreciate the first lines of this Audible review:
"Literally had to rage quit this- the level of insufferable drivel was giving me heart palpitations. Why does this person think her basic ass narcissism is worthy of a story?"

Hahahaha.

I kept wondering, is the author being ironic? Are these people and their trauma-dramas... ironic? Sadly I don't think they are. If this is Los Angeles count me out.

[nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

READING VLOG

The epitome of girl dinner.

It screams fridge of little plastic cups of fat-free yoplait sitting on one shelf and a raw-dogged gua sha on another. Maybe half a block of cheese. A half-drunken Erewhon smoothie.

For every lost twentysomething girl in Los Angeles, this has your name written all over it. Musings over what to do with reality in a capitalistic and patriarchal society. We hate men, but love to be loved by them, when they can love.

At first reading, I thought it was a novel. And a few chapters later, it felt apparently memoiric. Perhaps Duncan was aiming for auto-fiction, but fails as it lumps in its identity.

Nevertheless, this should be a cult classic, a Tiktok fav, and I'm not quite sure why this has flown under the radar.

Again, for all my smart and sad girlies out there. Pick this up!!!

*Please consider ordering the book through the link here which carries these words forward into all the book coverage I do!

[Dorrit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cats are evil, too, and I love them. So maybe it’s okay that I am what I am. We’re predators, daydreamers, slinky, dethroned royalty, cuddly only when we say.

[Soft Skull · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the aftermath of a reality TV deal gone wrong, Fiona Alison Duncan asks the question, Can you rewrite your life? The answer, her debut novel Exquisite Mariposa, follows a cast of housemates as they navigate questions of art making and economies, breakups and breakdowns, and the internet and its many obsessions.

[Luca · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'd started to smell like I hadn't since twelve, maybe thirteen. Humid and elemental, it was the smell of spontaneity. Pierce that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love! I just was. Still often anxious but learning to ground down. I hadn't yet met the Real–that humiliating bliss–but these months were like foreplay for that climax. Sometimes, it takes us a long time to get there."

This weird and wonderful lil book spoke to me in so many ways I did not expect. Such a refreshing and entrancing read. Def a new favorite!

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Eve Babtiz was a hipster Gwyneth Paltrow

[Cassie Rauch]

trying to stay Real........ is a vibe

[asia · Rating 2 out of 5]

you ever read a book where it is so apparent that twitter has so deeply imbedded itself into the gray folds of the authors brain that every sentence comes out self-centered and unoriginal? what if red scare podcast was a novel. what if the thirty-something leisure-creative class failsons and faildaughters of this beautiful nation stuck to posting

[Sporty · Rating 5 out of 5]

is good book

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few short passages from Exquisite Mariposa:



Alicia made art the way I did when I first started: from need, love, and naivete. When the feelings are as big as the information is chaotic, you put it into physical form in order to better see it, rearrange it, and maybe change it.



Now in New York, waitressing full-time and so tired, Alicia’s pretty much stopped making work. Many of the best are striving in the shadows. Spotlight’s full of frauds.



And God leaves the room when you sell out; it just happens, sorry.



Someone once told me the reason songs get stuck in our head is because the mind wants to hear them to completion. Remembering only a refrain it’ll repeat. The best way, then, to get a song out of your head is to listen to the whole thing.

[Judy Hilvers · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We can act like victims to our own inclinations, or we can make of the most of them.” And so, with the force of a REAL believer, author Fiona Alison Duncan takes us to Exquisite Mariposa, an alternate world where one can just “be”. Through her own conflicted journey, Duncan faces down the malevolent forces that surround her generation. Written with such clarity and intensity, “Exquisite Mariposa”, is a great read for those who wonder how others cope with life’s overstimulating assaults on the senses.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this but i just didn't. I liked the last two chapters that were slightly more grounded. I think with deeper engagement with her personal relationships FAD could have addressed the many issues this book speaks on in a more nuanced and engaging way.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing and beautiful book. If you are interested in the internal life of a creative millenial musing on love, sex, feminism and life in LA read this.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uniquely written and a good coming of age story. I didn’t really relate but it was a good read anyway.

[Hanp · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book isn't perfect - it's M E S S Y - but i'm thinking that's the point.

Anyway it will always be 5 stars because of the time in my life that i read it (the messiest time) and the way that while reading it i wrote out my own fever dream nonsensical ramblings into a google doc and i'm honestly still scared to fully read back on it because I was kind of on one and it had the energy of when you think something while high that at the time feels deeply insightful but is possibly, upon a later reading, mildly unhinged or just deeply egotistical or possibly delusional? :)

obviously i'm a slut for autofiction or fake autofiction. I just love that confessional tone and when the author is like lol so how much of this are u gonna believe is real, reader. And this book has that a lot.

This book has the energy of leaving a half eaten piece of toast on a plate with a flower painted on it in your room for a month, and then eating it one night in a fit of hunger :).

This book has the energy of sitting in your femme flatmate's room and talking for hours and spying on your neighbour and finding a pair of your own underwear that you haven't seen in years on the ground of your friend's room.

Besties vibes. Takes astrology seriously. Honestly read it.

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel taught me so much about myself, which is usually what I'm looking for in a book. I found it through recommendation of Hari Nef (queen) and the meditations on womanhood, self discovery, and friendship were so astute and needed. The narrator Fiona was relatable in the best ways because I saw the best and worst of myself in her without being too scared or too excited about it. I hadn't thought that much about growing up into a woman before I read her gender meditations because it always always felt oppressive- this painted them in a new light, about the importance of feminine energy and how spirituality naturally intersects with this. The narrator is also dope, with cool friends, real struggles with mental health, and no clear cut answers. I would recommend this to anyone looking for insight on what it's like to be a 20something yr old "not a girl, not yet a woman" <3

[Anthony Hilvers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading the Exquisite Mariposa is like walking into a diner in Dubuque, Iowa only to discover you’ve become a guest of the Bellagio Hotel. A reoccurring storyline of several women sharing an apartment called the Mariposa in Los Angel is rich with stories of friendship, self-discovery, relationships, branding, public relations, a proposed reality television show about her friends, dildos and survival in Los Angeles. I’m propelled through the book with discussions of “don’t act like a man”, astrology, “sugar babying”, and wads of chewing gum stuck to a steering wheel.

While Fiona admits she doesn’t necessarily like to write, I’m very glad she’s written this fascinating, delightful book.

[Bronwyn Suosmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found solace and deep, deep feeling in this novel of semi-private thoughts about sex, relationships, trauma, healing practices, god, magic, psychic musings, friendship, self fulfillment, self betrayal, gender, sexuality, writing, class divide, money, media, fashion, art, mental illness and divine love underlining all moving parts of the author's world. Living in The Real as a umm... Immaculate Vibration.

Makes me wanna write a best seller about embodying Carl Jung's Puella archetype in my 20's. Swag!

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading this quest to find “what’s Real” I am beginning to wonder myself. The world described in this book is completely foreign to me, and the meanderings and musings in here are just not my language. With the exception of when she is describing her friends and her admiration for them, this felt sadly empty and hollow.

[francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book every sad smart girl in her twenties should read

[Denim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this without expecting to. Took me about 80 pages to trust the author. But then the spine cracked open and the Real was real.

[Liara Roux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, beautifully written, spiraling out from the page, I frequently found phrases and terms from Duncan’s mind infiltrating my mind. As someone who was a broke artist for a bit in California (SF, not LA) it really resonated; the friendships, the cooking, walking everywhere despite the impracticality, the sex work. Duncan and her friends had a much different experience of sex work; my one big critique of the book is that she expands these negative experiences into universalities. Sex work is not inherently spiritually demeaning - but of course for her and her friends it felt that way, and that is valid, and we need all tales about sex work to be told, both pretty and ugly and everything in between. I had to put down the book at a certain point and take a break because it was, to be honest, making me feel bad about myself, and I’d caution any sex workers to be delicate with themselves when reading it. That being said, I found it well worth the extra caution and thoroughly enjoyed it in the end.

[valentines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never give out 5 star ratings. Only when a book moves me for some reason or other. Fiona’s writing is raw. It’s real. And it’s moving. I started reading this book a month or two before shit when down in my life. I only read up until about chapter 4 because life was too busy with me for me to have a minute of free time. Now, a day after the storm of my life has passed I picked up this book and read it in one sitting. God knows how much this book would’ve been useful to me before the shit show that just passed.

I’m grateful to Fiona for writing, persevering, and publishing this book.

[CJ Alberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny but earnest novel (memoir?) which is written in the throes of millennial consciousness.

This book is Very Online, and rightly exposes the current industry built around the idea of "culture" which most of us are complicit in, whether we realize it or not.

The blurring of the real and the Real our narrator is trying to distinguish between gets messier, as her unwillingness to divest in the structures harming her search becomes apparent.

Weird! Loopy! A love letter to LA! I liked it.

[Spenser Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did it all get real? I guess it's real enough

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

now that's what I like to read!

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

literally incredible

[Charlie Kruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vibrant, messy, absolutely the most contemporary book I've ever read. Really remarkable achievement.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

We need more lit about the times we're living in.

[Samara Rachelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because my mother lent it to me as her book club selection. Her friends had already had their meeting—my copy was stickered with tabs presumably marking profond passages. My mom said they thought the author brave.

I think the older ladies must have been impressed by Fiona’s sexual openness and the contemporary, confessional style of her writing. Presumably they’ve never read something like this before. What I see, however, is a diary (passed off as a novel) of a girl with a series of emotionally juvenile “insights,” but written in a verbose, stream-of-consciousness style that would be inaccessible to the young girls who might relate. (I say this as someone who is likely around the author’s age.)

One thing that struck me as very sad is that Fiona never seems to truly realize the man she is dating is a narcissist. Her life, essentially lived through her friends, never really changes. It feels rather like this book is her rationalization and effort to say, “Look, I have done things in the last few years—I’ve had thoughts, and wrote this,” when she sees how little her life and unhealthy patterns have shifted.

Essentially, this book is messy and lacking substance. These are clichés, platitudes, and superficial imitations of mindfulness passed off as feminist insights and spiritual epiphanies. If I am wrong about the author’s intentions, then I am really not sure at all what the she was trying to say or accomplish.