a rec from one of my main book girlies taylor! thanks for the recommendation! unfortunately i did not like this. sorry ily. my problem is what we discussed - i like books to be super exciting or so so boring but have great writing and no in between. this book was in between and i didn't like it. this is about a hypnotist named ellen who starts dating this widow single father who has a stalker ex girlfriend. i was very intrigued by the beginning but as it kept going i was like wondering when we were going to reach the point of the book but we never reached it.

i'm going to go into spoilers because i don't think i can properly explain what i didn't like without using them. okay so you also get saskia's (the stalker) perspective as well and the whole time she is justifying the thing in her head and she doesn't see herself as a stalker. i thought this was a really interesting thing to explore! the whole "crazy people don't believe they're crazy" thing but then at the end of the book she enters their house when they're sleeping and ends up getting pushed down the stairs. the main girl talks to her in the hospital and then she just has the realistion that she's been stalking? and fixes her life? and never bothers them every again? huh. what was the point of that then. there should have been more hints of her realising that this was not okay behaviour throughout OR she should have just kept stalking them. i see this as a sort of obsession/compulsive behaviour and i don't think that she could just have the realisation one day and then just stop and then that's just it???? like why did i just spend all that time reading this. oh well.

there was some stuff i did like though! i thought the stuff about being an older unmarried woman was interesting, i learnt a lot about hypnotherapy which was fun! and also it was set in sydney (where i grew up) and the climax of the story

(the aforementioned stair incident)

happened the night of the 2009 dust storm. (swipe for pics) i remember this happening and guys it was actually wild, was a fun tidbit and is part of why i love reading aus fiction cause they'll mention something specific and I'll be like omggg so me!!! anyway, 2.75 stars