Her Body and Other Parties is the debut collection of some of the American author Carmen Maria Machado's best short stories. Published in 2017, it dives into the daily realities and experiences of the lives of modern women without any boundaries so it provides an unfiltered account of what Carmen Maria Machado sees as the most prominent issues facing women. Using a blend of fantasy and realism, as well as a contrast between horror and comedy allows Her Body and Other Parties to humorously yet also shockingly express Carmen Maria Machado's contemplations on the society we live in. The title gets its name from the issue raised in the novel that a woman's body, unfortunately, doesn't always belong to themselves in instances of sexual violence, but wrongly the 'other parties' involved.
The response the collection has received has been overwhelmingly positive, with the author even being compared to Angela Carter in a review published by NPR. The short story collection has gone on to win the Shirley Jackson Award, and was nominated for the prestigious National Book Award for Fiction, where it reached the final. One short story in particular from the collection, The Husband Stitch, has had tremendous success and was even submitted for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Since the publishing of the collection in 2017, Carmen Maria Machado has gone onto release a memoir titled In the Dream House which discusses her own experiences with female violence and expands upon the themes discussed in Her Body and Other Parties.
