The only good thing about this book is that I listened to the audiobook and Emma Roberts narration was gorgeous. It was a story with amazing plot lines that were so terribly written. I had no idea how I could finish it. If anyone else read the book, I wouldn’t have been able to

(3.5)

I understand that this was intentionally shocking, but I fear that this femme-fatale may have girl-bossed too close to the sun. At the start of this novel the shock factor was very engaging and set up an interesting narrative, but from here things devolved into a non-linear stream of consciousness style trauma porn. I enjoyed the writing style but that was about it, the plot was meandering and was not worth the stress of reading it. TLDR: This was gross and I struggled with it, TW frequent discussions of sexual violence.

3.5

Feels like fictionalized cutting room floor leftovers from her other book, Three Women. It’s dark, but is more depressing than anything. Any metaphorical themes she’s trying to bring forward with the darkness aren’t ever fully actualized by the story, so you end up just feeling like you read a total downer, shit book. I wanted to enjoy this.

This book is at the top of the list of books I read this year. The main character was oddly relatable but fascinatingly unhinged. The prose is inventive and I loved the use of flashbacks and the withholding of the full story until the end.

Starting off by saying, LOTS of content trigger warnings! I don’t think I would recommend this book because of how traumatizing it is.

“Every single man in my life staked the path to murder. I’m not supposed to feel this but I do. I don’t think the act was vile, I think it was necessary”

I understood what the book was trying to do / get across, loved the idea of it but I will say I almost DNF because it was building up very slowwww. I was half way through and it wasn’t giving me enough on Joan’s character and I wanted more rage throughout. It wasn’t until she was recollecting memories that it started to build.

Once it DID focus on the rage aspect ~ from her history / trauma / relationships with her parents etc I was done quickly at once. There were also some things that didn’t need to be place in there TW: ex) multiple dialogues about rape and two people with disabilities murdered ~ that felt like was added for shock and to feed more trauma. I think it’s a great book / concept but it took in too much and couldn’t deliver it correctly. This isn’t to say character can’t experience lots of trauma btw obviously that comes with layers and trauma doesn’t need be justified for a plot ~ this is to say it dipped into these events very broadly and often but didn’t execute it well, it could have been talked about differently or in a way to elaborate on her character as a whole / the systems that are at play instead, instead of just throwing the events casually out there.

I definitely like that it clearly states the way Joan is conditioned to feel a certain way about herself, and it’s clear that it’s not based on her actions / her fault but because of what men / society have done to her plus added generational trauma.