by Zilla Novikov

A propulsive read that I finished on the same day I started it. No one in this story is a good person, but they’re such fascinating disasters that I couldn’t help rooting for them. Louise and her matter-of-fact delusions. Cat and her selfishness, Henry and his possessiveness. Of course this can’t end well. The flame that burns twice as bright and all that.

The heart of this book is about loneliness. What we’ll suffer, what we’ll put other people through, to survive it. The masks we’ll wear and the lies we’ll tell, our clothes off in an instant but so rarely naked, so rarely vulnerable. It’s better to be liked for someone you’re not, for something you can do for them, than to risk being alone.

Up to a point.