A review by georgina_bawden
The Confession by Jessie Burton

4.0

Since being horribly disappointed by The Miniaturist I have enjoyed every Jessie Burton novel I've read. This was entertaining and quite moving by the end. I found it slow going for a minute in the middle but older Connie is a great character. I felt real affection for young Elise too. The queer aspects didn't feel sensationalised or Wrong (you guys know what I mean. Inauthentic. In fact it made me feel like Jessie Burton might be one of us?). The themes of female art/authorship, and identity and the various ways those are conflated were interesting. The book illustrated that whilst it is wrong to assume all women's writing is autofiction (reducing the role of art and creativity), part of why that's wrong is also that ALL fiction writing is partly autofiction... It also touched on what it means to tell your own story and how hard that can be at various stages of life.