from the editor's desk
Review of ‘The Disorganisation of Celia Stone’ by Emma Young
Young, Emma. The Disorganisation of Celia Stone. Fremantle Press, 2023. RRP: $32.99, 352pp, ISBN: 9781760992040.
Jen Bowden
Readers are advised that the following review contains a detailed discussion of weight loss and diet culture.
When Bridget Jones’s Diary was first published in 1996, its success was such that Helen Fielding’s novel about a single, thirty-something woman living, working and finding love in London became a point of comparison for diarised narratives the world over. While Emma Young’s second novel, The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, is similar in style and content, it surpasses Bridget on multiple levels—most significantly in substance. This book is whip-smart, slick and unafraid of tackling the big stuff, such as overworking, eating disorders and the pressure young women often face to give up their careers to start a family.
Young uses the diary format to interrogate her protagonist Celia’s social characterisation as obsessive, stressed and controlling when in fact she is independent, driven and organised. Though Celia deals with heavier topics than Bridget, as mentioned above, that doesn’t hinder the novel’s sparkling narrative humour, making it an engaging, thought-provoking and compelling read.
Celia Stone is thirty-four, list-obsessed and living and working as a financial advisor in Perth. Everything is under control, subject to her many lists and carefully measured lifestyle, but when her husband suggests they consider having a baby and Celia’s period disappears, it sparks a series of events that leads her to question her current lifestyle and to contemplate her future.
At the heart of this book is a deep, meaningful discussion about measurement. In Celia’s case, her constant quantifying is both physical and emotional, as she measures the food she eats, her work output, how much exercise she does—everything is controlled. Early in the novel she gleefully observes that the ‘Post-Christmas pull-back has paid off! Feeling thinner than have done in ages. Pants actually too big. This has never happened’ (37). Yet Celia’s joy at meeting this measurement goal of hers is contradicted in her interactions with other characters—namely, her dad—who gives the reader a perspective outside the confines of Celia’s own narrative:
Yet he had the gall to cast his eye over me in my new jeans and frown and ask what I had done to myself.
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘I got some new jeans.’
‘It’s not that,’ he said, munching on a ludicrously pink doughnut and continuing to stare. ‘Something else. You don’t look well’ (42)
Though the italics of ‘I’ and ‘my’ are Celia’s and are posited in exasperation that her overweight father is judging her, this emphasis suggests she is perhaps subconsciously aware that she is partly responsible for doing this to herself under pressure from outside influences, as her dad says, but hasn’t yet got the strength or consciousness to realise it.
Though the standard to which Celia holds herself is her own, it’s clear that it doesn’t originate from her own beliefs. Instead, she is beholden to opinions and ideas put forward by ‘influencers’, and this is where Young subverts readerly expectations. Rather than the beauty bloggers, fitness influencers or ‘thinspiration’ posts that have come to dominate so many lives on social media, Celia’s addiction is to ostensibly more anti-capitalist content. However, the impact on Celia’s mental health and physical wellbeing is no different. She notes:
Can partly blame extreme minimalist vlogger Light By Coco for my obsession with minimalism in the beauty department. But it’s not just a vague yearning to be like the (thin and beautiful) Coco; in general, half-finished tubes of anything have begun to stress me out. (25)
Celia’s equation of thin with beautiful is expected and plays to the standard portrayals of power that online vloggers and influencers have. But the mention of how ‘half-finished tubes of anything’ are causing Celia stress is unexpected, and hints at how easily we’re led by what we see online. The minimalism trend as portrayed on social media adds yet another expectation Celia feels she must meet, and her reaction of stress and anxiety hints at the impact that something as seemingly trivial as a half-finished bottle of shampoo can have on her mental state.
One theme that The Disorganisation of Celia Stone explores particularly well is that of motherhood and the expectation put on young parents (particularly women) to choose between a family and a career. The idea that you can have it all, perpetuated by social media influencers who seem to do just that, is evident in Celia’s pros and cons list for having a baby.
How could it not destroy our lifestyle? No more easy car-camping, quiet yoghurt making, hours of reading and writing, maybe even you, Diary. And no more home office, would have to be a nursery until could alter financial plan to include detached housing (285, emphasis in original)
Even while working to recover from the physical and mental toll of constantly measuring herself, Celia still finds her most important decisions being subject to the measurements imposed on her by other people and society. It’s only when she voices these thoughts to her husband, and takes real time to consider what she wants, that she finds the answer she needs.
The Disorganisation of Celia Stone is not only one of the clearest, most explicit explorations of modern womanhood, societal pressure and self-identification to come in recent years, it’s also a bloody good read. It’s a timely, important and raw novel sparkling with life.
Jen is a writer, editor, podcast host and event moderator based in Brisbane. She lived and worked in Edinburgh, Scotland and has written for a number of UK newspapers and magazines including The List, The Guardian and The Scotsman. She previously worked for Fremantle Press and now teaches writing, journalism and publishing at Curtin University, where she’s also doing her PhD in creative writing.
