I actually finished this book weeks ago but have been struggling to articulate my thoughts enough since to write a review, mostly because I found it so……..ugh. And while I don’t want to spoil the twists for other readers, I feel it would be remiss not to mention that this book features alcoholism, child endangerment, rape and sexual assault, coercive control and emotional abuse.
Sanctimonious and spineless Daisy has been married to alcoholic Simon for years. They have the perfect ballet dancing daughter, Poppy, and a tight knit group of friends (or ‘friends’ in Daisy’s case, seeing as she can’t stand what seems like all but two of them). After Simon makes yet another tit of himself at a party they drive home and straight into a tragedy that will see Simon off to prison and Daisy left to try and cope alone.
The second part of the book then follows Daisy as she attempts – in her utterly lifeless and charmless way – to pick up the pieces, think horrible things about her friends and allow herself to have most of her decisions made for her. Only for another ‘twist’ to pop up at the end of Daisy’s very unreliable narration, giving you half the information that you hadn’t even realised we’d been missing from her story and making me feel like an utter shit for being so disgusted with her for most of the book, but then also turning out to have done something so gross to her friends that I hated her all over again.
From my hatred of the narrator to the guilt inducing twist and the gross consent issues, I really struggled to ‘enjoy’ much of this book. I’d spent most of it hating Daisy so much that I struggled to find anyone or anything to really care about, and the ‘happy’ ending we got given that grossly violated Daisy’s friends’ trust and bodies left a very bad taste in my mouth.