I am delighted to share my review today for This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten. This is a debut and it is a fabulous look into the head of its main protagonist Alice, and how she sees the world.
My huge thanks to Little, Brown Book Group (UK) for accepting my request to read this title via NetGalley. It is due to be published on 6th February 2025.
Alice has been cleaning Tom’s flat every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every multivitamin counted from the jar, every crease smoothed out in his bed, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation. But as Alice prepares for the moment when they will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was…
Told through the eyes of an obsessive protagonist, This Immaculate Body is a literary study of unreliability and unlikability. Exploring alienation and loneliness, class and race, it’s a skilled debut with resonance in the way that we view women, mental health and the lost in society.
MY REVIEW
Oh, my goodness!!! I adored this book so much. This is very much a character-driven novel and one that is told from the perspective of Alice. It is one of those books that I think will divide readers and for me, it was just ideal for getting into the head of a character and then seeing the world through her eyes.
Alice, well what can I say about her, she is someone who doubts herself, and doesn’t mix it is more that she doesn’t know how to mix as she does keep herself to herself. If critical of her body and how she looks. She is a cleaner and also works in an office.
The cleaning is something that she is obsessive about, that and the person she cleans for, Tom. She knows all she can about him and her obsession with him is to the nth degree. Counting his tablets, checking his fridge, maybe pilfering the odd item that has not been used and imagining her life with him.
The author has created a character who is deeply flawed and I did feel sympathy for Alice as she navigates her life. I will say that this did not last until the end of the book, yes there is still sympathy but this then changed into something else as the actions of Alice became more and more obsessive. the author takes the reader into the psyche of Alice and her thoughts, dreams and aspirations, in doing so, she can show the reader how Alice is doing the right thing as far as she is concerned.
The story is a slower pace, but this works so well for this sort of novel, the suspense and the sense of danger and dread are gradually built up. There is a psychological side to this story as it portrays the way some women deal with mental health, society and expectations. Obviously, this is something that can also be applied to men as well, but in this book, the author focuses on women.
This was a book that I read over a couple of sittings, the first time I picked it up I read about 30%, and then when I picked it up again I could not put it down. It became more emotional and complex, and with this came more suspense and a sense of the book turning more into a thriller.
If you are looking for something a bit different, told from the viewpoint of the main character and that has a literary fiction, mystery and thriller feel to it then this is one you may be interested in. I adored it a huge amount and found it incredibly addictive, so I would definitely recommend it.
Many thanks for reading my post, like or share would be amazing 🙂 xx
