“Someone who needs you, even just a little – who needs you to like or love them – seeing their weakness is disturbing and repellent. It’s ugly but it’s true.”

When I finished reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of the saying “be careful what you wish for.” This book dives deep into longing, obsession, desire, pain, self-harm, love, friendship, admiration, and, as the title states, desperation. It’s an interesting look into the layers and levels that one will go to, both performative and honest, to upkeep and control relationships. Even at times, the parts of oneself that are sacrificed to said cause or given away.

This book follows the life of an unnamed woman who has given herself to her passions of lust and desire. Through falling into a relationship with a man she desires so strongly to be with, a writer named Ciaran, we see what unfolds when obsession leads your purpose. A deliberately dirty and depressing outlook on recognition and being seen. Reading this book felt like watching a dog chase a toy on a treadmill—animalistic and distant, but also laid bare in the fact that everyone has pined for something they thought they needed, bent in a way they thought they wouldn’t for someone.

Sadly, Ciaran is watching the experiment with us. He knows his positioning and wields his power accordingly, until our lead learns just how this treadmill works. It’s then when our unnamed character gets her toy only to play with it and rip it to shreds, but also ripping parts of herself in the process. Because, like anything you were once obsessed with, you become bored but never want to share it. Though eventually, you let it go. You outgrow it.