What a strange responsibility it was, to hold someone's death in your hands. Death seemed fragile, like crumpled paper, a thousand years old. One false move and I could crush it. Death was like old, brittle lace, the appliqué about to separate from the fine mesh threads, nearly shredded, hanging there, beautiful and delicate and about to disintegrate. Life wasn't like that. Life was robust. It was stubborn. Life took so much to ruin.

I was a little apprehensive picking this one up after seeing the average rating on Goodreads, which is something I know shouldn't matter and that other people's opinions shouldn't infringe or influence my own thoughts and feelings on a book - nonetheless, I kind of prepared myself to be disappointed. However, I am so pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Death in her Hands really reminded me of Olga Tokarczuk's excellent novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - an antisocial elderly woman whose closest companion is her dog, becomes obsessed with a murder and her mind begins to unravel. The books are doing completely different things but their tones and the ingredients are quite similar. Tokarczuk's book is technically better, in my opinion, though that didn't detract from my enjoyment of Moshfegh's latest work. I can see why so many people would dislike this book, though, as I think a lot of readers pick it up expecting a crime novel, which it really isn't. I would not advise reading this if you're expecting an intense murder mystery, thriller, whodunit or anything of that calibre - Death in her Hands takes some of those dark hues and plays with them, but this is really, at its core, a story about the human mind and the lengths it will go to protect itself.

Vesta becomes invested in this mythology of Magda, the murdered girl, that she herself has created, and this story, these fabrications, are starting to bleed into her reality. Fact and fiction become indiscernible from one another as her fixation on this case grows, which only she, and the supposed murderer, seems to know about. Throughout the novel, Vesta divulges information about her own history and it becomes clear that she is transplanting some of her own traumas and issues onto this murdered woman, and the lines between them start to blur. There are some very taut, unnerving moments throughout the book as Vesta begins to see shadows in her home, finding objects moved, and doors unlocked, and I think that Moshfegh handles Vesta's increasing paranoia brilliantly.

Death in her Hands is a surprisingly thoughtful book that mulls on the state of this one woman's slackening grip on reality, and the all consuming drive for purpose and control over one's own narrative. In her pursuit of answers, Vesta uncovers truths about herself that have clearly been deeply buried, particularly about her relationship with her late husband, and she uses Magda as a device to work through that trauma and finally empathise with her past self, which I found incredibly moving to read.

From what I've heard of Moshfegh's other works, she relishes in writing unlikeable, barbed characters who have the potential to prickle the reader's nerves, and that is also the case with this book. Vesta can be extremely cutting about other people, particularly those who are overweight, and there's a lot of body shaming throughout the novel, as well as uncomfortable discussions on the appearance of a man who has been left disfigured after an accident. I completely understand why this would put some people off and, to be honest, I felt uncomfortable reading those sections, grimacing at some of the particularly sharp instances, but I always felt that this was Vesta speaking and not Moshfegh projecting some of her unpopular opinions through a character, which is sometimes blatantly the case in other writer's work. There was spite but, in my opinion, only from the character and not the author, though I completely understand why some readers may feel differently.

I am now extremely curious to pick up more of Moshfegh's books and I think Eileen will be my next port of call.