Wow, this was incredible. The writing was so raw, vulnerable and personal, and yet utterly intoxicating. 

The book centred on the whirlwind ‘romance’ between the narrator and Ciaran, laying bare the destructive force of obsessive love on the self. The narrator’s point of view, despite being unnamed, was so intimate that you felt everything that she went through. 

Interweaved with the affecting prose was nuanced and edifying commentary on sex, gender, consent, power and patriarchy, the male gaze and the violence of sex. The flash-forwards to 2019 Athens were rich and clear in these perspectives, providing a stunning contrast to the dizziness of the narrator’s thoughts and experiences in the main timeline. 

Overall, a staggering and important debut which left me stewing in thought for a while after.

This book was truly amazing. I loved the writing style, it was perfectly poetic and perfectly detailed. I really enjoyed how it explored the main characters relationship with different people, and how they developed. It really depicted the need for male validation and how this is so hurtful in an amazing way. The story really resonated with me. TW: There are a lot of things in this book that might be triggering, like eating disorders, self harm and rape.

one of those books that i absolutely adored but never want to reread 

I’m not sure what to say about this one. I want to call it ‘gorgeous’, a word I typically use for books I like, but in this instance that is the wrong word to use. I’m not even sure if ‘like’ is the right word as I spent quite a lot of it in despair for the protagonist. But this book sure took me on a ride and I was absolutely on board for every turn it took.

This is a book about love, lust, obsession and hate. It’s visceral and doesn’t hold back - definitely watch out for trigger warnings on this one as there are some exceptionally brutal moments. 

An unnamed protagonist falls head over heels with a beautiful but quite damaged man named Ciaran. He’s a very powerful presence and she falls completely under his spell. The more we follow the relationship, the more we begin to see the pair of them unravel in their own ways. He is controlling and manipulative; she is desperate to please and self-destructive. A terrible combination… 

I really enjoyed Nolan’s writing style. I loved it’s honestly and rawness. It’s one of the more accurate depictions I’ve read of living with extremely low self esteem. Parts of this just spoke to me; it’s one of those novels in which I used page markers fairly thoroughly. I liked how absolutely all of the characters (with the exception of Lisa, who doesn’t appear much) are morally grey. 

Speaking of grey, I also felt this to be a poignant exploration into the grey areas around sex and consent; with frequent references to times in which she didn’t want, but acquiesced to, her partner’s persistent demands despite saying no initially. This coupled with her increasingly alarming sexual habits paints quite a nasty but sadly common image and says a lot about male dominance and female commodification. I know this isn’t exactly new in literature, but I’ve not read of it such a disturbing light before. It needs talking about more openly.

It was a fairly short read, made to feel even shorter by the snapshot nature of this novel. Each ‘chapter’ is no more than 5 pages, and frequently only half a page, making for a book that is easily devoured in a day. Sadly I read this during a ‘slump’ period so it took considerably longer… however, I do believe that a book that can get a person out of a slump is always very impressive, and that’s exactly what happened here.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend - but as mentioned, please take note of trigger warnings first… 

This book...oh, my God. She's short, but she packs a fucking punch. "Acts of Desperation" follows an unnamed narrator who on the first page meets a man and falls into a "brief, all-consuming" romance with him before he abruptly dumps her. She resolves to get him back and keep him by any means necessary, even if it means degrading and destroying herself.

The writing in this book is so beautiful and harsh at the same time. I highlighted so much in this book, such a range of lines: lines that I related to, lines that I thought were interesting, lines that made this character make sense to me (because she often did not, which made her seem painfully real).

Through this narrator's voice, the reader is exposed to her confessional, her literal desperation for male attention and male love, her love addiction, her mental illness. The way at times, this man she claimed to love so fully did not even seem like someone she liked, and yet she simply couldn't be without him- without *someone* in general - God. You have a front row seat to all of it and it is sometimes so brutal that one must set the book down and just decompress.

However, in the brutality of this narrative, there are moments so poignant and relatable that I couldn't get my highlighter/pen cap off fast enough to highlight or annotate. There were parts of this that also felt too smart for me, things that didn't and do not make sense to me still, and I don't know if that's because I'm not smart enough or if it's just a reflection of what a mess this character is?

Overall, obviously, I loved this. I loved the commentary and chronicling of this woman's case of love addiction & other things throughout that I won't mention at the risk of giving things away inadvertently.