ruthie_the_librarian's review against another edition
3.0
This was a book group read. I didn't finish it as I just wasn't enjoying it. It didn't help that a cover quote talks about how funny the author is...I just found it all very uncomfortable, even painful to read about someone who was so obviously damaged and in need of help.
laurynmailey's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
esselleayy's review against another edition
4.0
Not subtle. There's no question that Annie is a most unreliable narrator, and I love her for it. The fun comes in observing her self-delusion and waiting for it to all fall apart. More of a character study than a mystery.
vcam2012's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastic, dark, mad, funny, twisted. Great book. 9/10
steadyboyfriend's review against another edition
5.0
This book so so well written, it's like I had Ashworth's character Annie sitting right next to me as I read. Annie's voice came through the pages so loudly it's like a I was getting punched in the face (in a good way of course), she was completely believable and not overdone like I was afraid was going to happen. She progressed slowly throughout the book, becoming more and more crazy and even more self obsessed and indulgent. I couldn't put this book down, I read it in just under two days and that is only because I had to work. I just had to see what next crazy thing Annie was going to do next. Well done, this is my top read of this year.
maedo's review against another edition
3.0
A few weeks ago, after realizing that many of the books I read have the common thread of a plot I probably wouldn't want to talk about in mixed company, I added a "criminals or tremendous creepers" shelf tag. It features American Psycho, Ann Rule, necrophilia, Nazis, a disturbingly high number of pedophiles, and now, this book. A Kind of Intimacy certainly belongs in the category, but it makes me uncomfortable on a level quite different from the other books on the shelf.
Its protagonist, Annie Fairhurst, is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Newly single and freshly moved into a new home, she convinces herself that her cute next door neighbor Neil is secretly in love with her and aching to break up with his beautiful young girlfriend, Lucy. She proceeds to read his every smile as full of desire, every refusal to look at her as nervousness or modesty rather than disinterest. His "reluctance" to break up with Lucy, she tells herself, proves that he's just a nice guy who "wants to do it right."
I don't know about you, but failure to interpret body language correctly ranks high on my scale of mutual discomfort. I can't stand to see a person forge ahead seductively when the other party is telling them no in myriad ways. And this is what Annie does. All of a sudden she's whipped her breasts out of her dress, thinking that Neil wants this to happen (!) and it's a squirmy trainwreck. But you're reading this wreck from her perspective, and you're seeing the way she rationalizes her behavior as the right thing to do in the moment, so there's some degree of sympathy for her too, even as she commits small acts of vandalism and is in such denial about them that she is genuinely surprised when accused.
Then there's the ending. The book, once something of a tragedy, makes good on its "dark comedy" description in its final chapters. The epilogue and the pages of action that precede it read like Ashworth realized she'd gone on a little long without bringing this whole thing around to catharsis and overshot the crazy by forty meters as a make-up. No, thank you. I'd probably love a good snowglobe as weapon scene or rage! mirror shattering at the end of another book, but Annie's sociopathic tendencies up until this point had been pathetic, not funny. I know, I know: books with plots need climaxes. This one's over the top.
Its protagonist, Annie Fairhurst, is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Newly single and freshly moved into a new home, she convinces herself that her cute next door neighbor Neil is secretly in love with her and aching to break up with his beautiful young girlfriend, Lucy. She proceeds to read his every smile as full of desire, every refusal to look at her as nervousness or modesty rather than disinterest. His "reluctance" to break up with Lucy, she tells herself, proves that he's just a nice guy who "wants to do it right."
I don't know about you, but failure to interpret body language correctly ranks high on my scale of mutual discomfort. I can't stand to see a person forge ahead seductively when the other party is telling them no in myriad ways. And this is what Annie does. All of a sudden she's whipped her breasts out of her dress, thinking that Neil wants this to happen (!) and it's a squirmy trainwreck. But you're reading this wreck from her perspective, and you're seeing the way she rationalizes her behavior as the right thing to do in the moment, so there's some degree of sympathy for her too, even as she commits small acts of vandalism and is in such denial about them that she is genuinely surprised when accused.
Then there's the ending. The book, once something of a tragedy, makes good on its "dark comedy" description in its final chapters. The epilogue and the pages of action that precede it read like Ashworth realized she'd gone on a little long without bringing this whole thing around to catharsis and overshot the crazy by forty meters as a make-up. No, thank you. I'd probably love a good snowglobe as weapon scene or rage! mirror shattering at the end of another book, but Annie's sociopathic tendencies up until this point had been pathetic, not funny. I know, I know: books with plots need climaxes. This one's over the top.
tillymint100's review against another edition
4.0
Reminded me a little bit of Sophie Hannah's style of writing. Not so much a thriller more a dark psychological read.
stephasaurusss's review against another edition
3.0
A page turner. I couldn't wait to see what happened next. It was amazing to be inside of this woman's mind. She was so delusional but it felt honest. You could really tell that she believed in these things. Very well done portrait of an unstable mind.
aditurbo's review against another edition
2.0
DNF. I'm not enjoying this. I see where it is going, and I don't see anything original here or anything relevant to me. I'm not happy about the way the protagonist is portrayed, and I feel that there may be something exploitative in this novel about the use of child abuse as an explanation for how the main character behaves. Not for me.
jasminenoack's review against another edition
5.0
This book is about a crazy person, and I don't mean a little bit of a crazy person a super crazy person. Say hello to Annie, weirdly my mother's name is also annie, perhaps that is not weird. Annie has a crazy father, and from what I can tell had an extremely loving husband up until she went and fucked that up too. No totally seriously her husband seems like a really great guy who is willing to put up with basically anything as long as he get to be with her. She is totally unappreciative of that. Annie is socially, well inept would be the nice way to put it. Lets go with schizotypal perhaps. Certainly sociopathic.
Regardless lets talk about the book, or at least pretend to. Basically I read the summary of this book and decided certain events had occurred, then 2/3s of the way through the book was worried that such events actually hadn't occurred, reread the jacket seeing it said nothing of these events. But no worries all eventually everything I was expecting to happen in this book did and I enjoyed every moment of it.
The book is a bit of an experiment in character development, the Annie you meet in the first few pages is not the same Annie that you walk away from the book with. Part of the problem being a completely unreliable narration that forces you to question everything that has occurred in the entire book. It is very clear that Annie is telling the entire story after the fact and seeing how by the end you are forced to question everything that she says it is hard to know what to think about the entire book. There were moments when I just couldn't tell what was going on at all. But in the end I enjoyed it and it all turned out for the best.
Here is a toast to another great British attempt to humanize the criminal mind. Although a comparatively much more creepy one.
addendum:
I have decided that this review is complete crap and it isn't that I am trying to float it just that I think I completely missed some of the very important points of the book.
This book is about people I find generally disgusting, basically a morbidly obese person who thinks that is super sexy, or what she says is "some men like that". In her social ineptitude she fails to mention the men she knows that like that have creepy feeder fetishes(I mean these are basically as creepy if not worse than furry fetishes), I am not sure she is aware of this. This leads to part of the creepiness of the book. Several times Annie talks about how she is so good in social situations and explains how other events have lead to her talent. This talent manifests as her cutting herself on purpose and hiding in the kitchen during her party, and believing next door neighbors who are in happy relationships are completely in love with her. Social talents my ass.
Okay I don't know if I am done yet, but I feel much better about this review now.
The book is a bit of an experiment in character development, the Annie you meet in the first few pages is not the same Annie that you walk away from the book with. Part of the problem being a completely unreliable narration that forces you to question everything that has occurred in the entire book. It is very clear that Annie is telling the entire story after the fact and seeing how by the end you are forced to question everything that she says it is hard to know what to think about the entire book. There were moments when I just couldn't tell what was going on at all. But in the end I enjoyed it and it all turned out for the best.
Here is a toast to another great British attempt to humanize the criminal mind. Although a comparatively much more creepy one.
addendum:
I have decided that this review is complete crap and it isn't that I am trying to float it just that I think I completely missed some of the very important points of the book.
This book is about people I find generally disgusting, basically a morbidly obese person who thinks that is super sexy, or what she says is "some men like that". In her social ineptitude she fails to mention the men she knows that like that have creepy feeder fetishes(I mean these are basically as creepy if not worse than furry fetishes), I am not sure she is aware of this. This leads to part of the creepiness of the book. Several times Annie talks about how she is so good in social situations and explains how other events have lead to her talent. This talent manifests as her cutting herself on purpose and hiding in the kitchen during her party, and believing next door neighbors who are in happy relationships are completely in love with her. Social talents my ass.
Okay I don't know if I am done yet, but I feel much better about this review now.