Received this copy for review through Netgalley. Thank you!
(triggers at the end)

i am thoroughly speechless with regards to how this book made me feel? how do i explain it?? i think everyone just needs to read this to understand

this is the kind of book you devour instantly, as all the emotions constanta feels will be reflected in your mood throughout the whole story. it's an open letter that she writes to her once love, forever tormentor, explaining how they reached the point in their long lives in which she couldn't take it any longer. it's about her slow progression from idle wife, victim to a monster's clutches, to the emboldened leader she becomes once those she loves are threatened by their husband.

you root for constanta, since by the time the horrific climax reaches, she's shown every aspect to her and her husband's trying lives, and you can't help but empathize with her will for freedom. you come to care for magdalena and alexi as she cares for them, and you want to protect them as fiercely as she does.

i dunno how the author did it, but i was a mess by the end of the book. suddenly i need to read everything they've ever written pls

trigger warnings for
domestic abuse (verbal, emotional, physical), violence, depictions of depression and mania, murder (on-page), confinement