Wounded Child Prostitute

Bela is a woman who is a self-admitted helpless victim of the male victimizers of the world, misogynistic men who hurt women physically and mentally, and she's had enough. The intention is for Bela to get revenge and she goes at it fighting fire with fire. Her inner dialogue is interesting enough. It seems properly confused, helpless, making efforts in an honest way to pull together her revenge act. I had a problem with the language in the narrative itself, which seemed to be reminiscent of single women I'd met in London, UK while I lived there whose mother tongue was other than English. Fair enough, it added to the 'helplessness' factor for me. Zahavi used a technique of having Bela repeat certain observations during her inner narrative which became annoying. The repetitive technique reminded me of a poetry style and it seemed she was trying to tie the whole piece together in a repetitive, rhythmic way, which for the most part worked, but I felt it could have been trimmed a bit. The repetition got to me after a while and I started skimming. I could describe it as a cross between a Clint Eastwood movie and: The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes - see: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-highwayman - the poem has an example of that rhythmic repetition.[spoiler alert] [spoiler alert] I really finished the book to find out the end, which I'd already guessed as soon as she said she threw the gun away in the alley while killing off those nasty (Clockwork Orange-ish kids). Even though I sensed she'd kill the last one with her knife (which was conveniently muted), right up to the last pages, I was wondering if Zahavi was going to let her be killed and end with a tragedy. I'd say that without a doubt, the tragic ending would have been a superior story, but then everyone would disagree I'm sure, so I won't say that. Still a very good book, and a big touche for the Belas of the world. Bravo.