Platform Seven

CW: abuse, suicide

This was a hard read. The raw realness of what Louise writes about is happening, all the time, around us, and so many women suffer.

The overarching theme is domestic violence, with a sprinkling of child abuse and suicide.

It's really, bloody hard. But Louise does an amazing job giving the main character her complete and utter deserved dignity and peace.

The book starts abrupt, then just fascinating. It's not entirely gripping, initially, but fascinating, and you know something is just around the corner.

Then things start to really happen, and the warning bells are going.

Then they really ramp up! And damn, I literally couldn't put it down.

The main douche canoe needed far more comeuppance. I think that's the only thing that I could draw as a negative: he got off too lightly, and deserved far worse.

Thank you Louise, great book!

3.5 stars. Trigger warning! Very disturbing depiction of psychological, emotional and mental abuse- gas lighting, jealousy and control. It was an uncomfortable read, but had me hooked.

From the blurb, I had expected this book to be a thriller but it isn't, really. It's mostly long-winded meanderings of an unpleasant character, full of pettiness and weird gender essentialism (I got so sick of seeing “why do all women”), then a bloated middle section of flashbacks involving her missing all of the red flags in her relationship. I liked the hopefulness of the resolution but it took way too long to get there.