Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley. I’m also friendly with Sarah Frantz and the author on Twitter (although those relationships made me want to read the book, they didn’t affect my opinion of it).
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) The universe is a glitterball I hold in the palm of my hand.
Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on love, hope, happiness, and—most of all—himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people’s expectations.
Then a chance encounter at a stag party throws him into the arms of Essex boy Darian Taylor, an aspiring model who lives in a world of hair gel, fake tans, and fashion shows. By his own admission, Darian isn’t the crispest lettuce in the fridge, but he cooks a mean cottage pie and makes Ash laugh, reminding him of what it’s like to step beyond the boundaries of anxiety.
But Ash has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can’t see past the glitter to the light. Can a man who doesn’t trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can a man who doesn’t believe in happiness ever fight for his own?
What worked for me (and what didn’t): Sometimes, what seems on the surface to be the strangest pairing, is not so strange at all when you really look at it. Ash is bipolar type 1, with an anxiety disorder on top of it. He is a successful author, well off financially and fond of bespoke suits. He is cynical, sharp, articulate, intelligent and, let’s face it, a bit of a snob. He is also… passive. He feels like his life is basically over, his mental illness having robbed him of the life he thought he would have.
Darian, on the other hand, is almost exactly the opposite. He’s an Essex boy who does a bit of “moddlin’” – think Zoolander meets The Only Way is Essex (which, for the US audience, is a British Jersey Shore). That is; exactly the kind of person the reality TV watching audience loves to watch in order to feel superior (sometimes, this has been me). At first, Darian seems like bit of a joke character – his complexion is unashamedly orange from his fake tan, he’s (apparently) not too bright, and has a broad accent which many would perceive as a further reducing his already average IQ. He’s the unsophisticated opposite of Ash. I wondered if Ash would accept him as a romantic hero? I wondered whether I would.
