I loved this book. The interactions between the characters were riveting, like being unable to turn away from a car wreck. OK, I was confused about the time shifts, but to me that didn't matter. I took each scene on its merits - there wasn't really any plot to fit them into anyway. I would love to read more of her work. ( )

I did not like this as well as My Phantoms, although it was shortlisted for an award. The narrative was rather chaotic. ( )

Neve and Edwyn - what in heavens name are they doing together? Why are they married? What is the point of the torture they inflict on each other? As Neve looks back on her life in a desultory fashion it becomes both clear (and yet still mystifying) that deep forces of personal history are at work here. Or maybe she’s just in hell. I don’t know.

There is something relentless about Gwendoline Riley’s characters, their insistent cruelty, and baffling willingness to have cruelty inflicted upon themselves. I want to chalk this up to just a case of unhappy families. But this time I found it sort of pointless. There didn’t seem to be any growth in the characters. And moments when they were not harming each other were just as inexplicable to me as moments when they were. That said, Riley’s writing — the sentences themselves — are compelling. I was often surprised by turns of phrase, oblique observations, Neve’s sad mother. But increasingly I found myself wondering what I was getting out of the process.

Only very gently recommended, but confident that there are better things to come from Riley. ( )

I enjoyed the book and disagree with most of the takes I'm seeing in the few reviews here. I don't think the book is about her relationship with the husband, per se, rather it's a look at the abusive relationships she has found herself in and a character study of her mother. The book asks a lot of questions and doesn't give many answers, besides the obvious ones. In this way, it is like life: there are no tidy or linear narratives, besides the ones we tell ourselves. I found the mother character particularly interesting, and I am not usually a fan of "mother characters". I usually don't like when authors put an ironic distance between the protagonist and other characters, but here I enjoyed it. Is she herself headed down the same path as the Mother? Is she attracted to self-harm and abusive relationships because of her Father? Yes and yes, but nothing is ever really that straight forward. My only critique is that I think it could have been longer. ( )

This felt a bit misery porn-y to me. Two unpleasant people in an unpleasant relationship in which they are cruel to each other. I liked the writing quite a bit - it's very very understated - and the way the novel shifts back and forth in time. Also, cracking dialogue that really drives the action. But I found it so difficult to care about the characters. Luckily, it is short.

This was the third book in the FutureLearn/How to Read a Novel online course I'm taking and perhaps after I talk with some of my classmates and hear what my teacher has to say, I'll appreciate it a bit better. ( )