A mostly effective narrative showcasing the absolute dogged, often casual and assumed, violence against women in a tourist location. Alternating between two perspectives and timelines we slowly construct the lives of each, and it answers how they have come to the circumstances they’re in, as they are brutalized by partners they never really chose in the first place, since they were controlled and abused even prior to it becoming physical.

The violence varies and is absolutely interminable, for a specific point. I thought it was a form meets structure choice that worked very well, but we also draining of the reader. It is also brutal, and feels like a wake up call without being sensational. It’s a matter-of-face tone embedded, and the stories are almost perfunctory; especially as as they build and dovetail together, showing the ways in which trauma plays a part in the perpetuation of this kind of cycle. It will absolutely be triggering for some people, covering incest rape, gaslighting, domestic violence, and degrees and forms of these in other circumstances.

I read the book and the audiobook and have to say that the audiobook is really excellent. If you’re having problems clicking with the voice on the page, absolutely try the audiobook. It ended up supplanting my physical reading, which basically never happens. Usually it’s just for chores and walks, etc. I am not completely sure how the perspective would have played with me otherwise. It became inseparable to my experience.