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toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book...oh, my God. She's short, but she packs a fucking punch. "Acts of Desperation" follows an unnamed narrator who on the first page meets a man and falls into a "brief, all-consuming" romance with him before he abruptly dumps her. She resolves to get him back and keep him by any means necessary, even if it means degrading and destroying herself.
The writing in this book is so beautiful and harsh at the same time. I highlighted so much in this book, such a range of lines: lines that I related to, lines that I thought were interesting, lines that made this character make sense to me (because she often did not, which made her seem painfully real).
Through this narrator's voice, the reader is exposed to her confessional, her literal desperation for male attention and male love, her love addiction, her mental illness. The way at times, this man she claimed to love so fully did not even seem like someone she liked, and yet she simply couldn't be without him- without *someone* in general - God. You have a front row seat to all of it and it is sometimes so brutal that one must set the book down and just decompress.
However, in the brutality of this narrative, there are moments so poignant and relatable that I couldn't get my highlighter/pen cap off fast enough to highlight or annotate. There were parts of this that also felt too smart for me, things that didn't and do not make sense to me still, and I don't know if that's because I'm not smart enough or if it's just a reflection of what a mess this character is?
Overall, obviously, I loved this. I loved the commentary and chronicling of this woman's case of love addiction & other things throughout that I won't mention at the risk of giving things away inadvertently.
The writing in this book is so beautiful and harsh at the same time. I highlighted so much in this book, such a range of lines: lines that I related to, lines that I thought were interesting, lines that made this character make sense to me (because she often did not, which made her seem painfully real).
Through this narrator's voice, the reader is exposed to her confessional, her literal desperation for male attention and male love, her love addiction, her mental illness. The way at times, this man she claimed to love so fully did not even seem like someone she liked, and yet she simply couldn't be without him- without *someone* in general - God. You have a front row seat to all of it and it is sometimes so brutal that one must set the book down and just decompress.
However, in the brutality of this narrative, there are moments so poignant and relatable that I couldn't get my highlighter/pen cap off fast enough to highlight or annotate. There were parts of this that also felt too smart for me, things that didn't and do not make sense to me still, and I don't know if that's because I'm not smart enough or if it's just a reflection of what a mess this character is?
Overall, obviously, I loved this. I loved the commentary and chronicling of this woman's case of love addiction & other things throughout that I won't mention at the risk of giving things away inadvertently.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Stalking, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Gun violence, and Medical content
Minor: Dementia, Murder, and Classism