Synopsis

She's twenty-three and in love with love. He's older, and the most beautiful man she's ever seen. The affair is quickly consuming.

But this relationship is unpredictable, and behind his perfect looks is a mean streak. She's intent on winning him over, but neither is living up to the other's ideals. He keeps emailing his thin, glamorous ex, and she's starting to give in to secret, shameful cravings of her own. The search for a fix is frantic, and taking a dangerous turn... We're all looking to get what we want - but do we know what we need?

Review

I’ve seen this everywhere in hardback (this papier back version is out today!) so I was excited to read it.

Did I love this book? No. Did I hate this book? Definitely not. It just wasn’t my fave. It’s beautifully written and without lumping all Irish authors together, it has that current Irish writing style that is super popular at the minute. I also really felt for the main protagonist (we don’t learn her name) and even more so after reading somewhere that the author based it somewhat on her life. It’s actually quite heartbreaking when you know that.

This book is a raw and unfiltered, almost diary of a young woman’s desires, insecurities and mental health. The only thing that was missing for me was an insight into why she becomes so obsessed in her relationship, I felt that was missing so I couldn’t reason or understand why she was acting the way she was.

If you like hard hitting, raw, emotional novels this will be for you.

[originally posted Jan 18 2022]