What a hauntingly beautiful book. I’m still crying.

2.5 stars

If toxicity were a person, her name would be Sabine.

Its the late 90's and Meggie is a 23 year old living in London, having recently moved from South Africa to escape an overbearing mother. She has a nice boyfriend, an uninspiring job and is a bit unsure of her path in life. Then she meets the mysterious Sabine at work. She swaps to the nightshift to be closer to Sabine and slowly starts to change aspects of her life to be more like her. In the shadowy anonymity of the nighttime city, she experiments with alcohol, drugs and sexuality.

This is a book about obsession and identity, the 90s setting taking the reader back to a time when you still could reinvent yourself or disappear without a social media history to betray you. But what happens when admiring someone crosses over into wanting to be them?

Interesting,well written and at times quite dark

4.5⭑for me. presents a complex, emotionally intense relationship that defies simplicity.

There isn't nearly enough bite to this story. It doesn't waste any time getting to the main plot of Meggie's self-destructive obsession. Unfortunately, it's narrated by future, older Meggie, who seems fine. So we aren't ever in much fear that anything irreversible happens to Meggie, which takes away any sense of urgency we might feel.

Of course there is also the question of Sabine, but she is almost a non-character to us. We only get tiny snippets of information about her history and situation, and have every reason to distrust these. There's not much reason for us to have any more than a passing interest in an epilogue about Sabine.

The story is at least somewhat thought-provoking, but unfortunately not at all gripping.