27th August 2023

I picked this up during a book-shopping spree, based on the promise of the cover and an expectation of cosy crime.

This is not cosy at all. In fact it was so not cosy that I found I had to stop at about the halfway mark. I was struggling so much to empathise with the characters and found it painful and cringeworthy to read.

This really is the story of two broken people, who happen to work together. One is broken by grief, and trying to navigate through this with the aid of drink, poetry, and bad relationship choices. The other is broken through social awkwardness and obsessiveness, incapable of empathising with her colleague and becoming her stalker.

I couldn’t cope with this level of negativity - I’m into fiction for enjoyable escapism, and for me this book didn’t offer that.

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