Absolutely loved this, devoured it, laughed, made notes, felt sick. Perfect.

I loved the fact that this was set in Newcastle and I made an effort to keep the accent in my head. It's refreshing to have regional representation in a huge bestseller, and the class tensions when she's visits London were as infuriating as intended.

I'm seeing in other reviews, references to

American Psycho

, sometimes in a derogatory way as if the author has been unoriginal or that the rest of the plot is therefore predictable, but early on in the story we're told that

Flo suspects her of having BPD and of being a compulsive liar

, so you're already set up to

suspect that Irina is an unreliable narrator. There is then actually pretty damning evidence throughout that she has actually murdered someone - despite all the red herrings pointing to mental illness - it's actually trauma

. 

I felt sorry for Eddie, he was treated terribly, but I judged him for

repeatedly coming back. He makes an attempt to bond with her, but he was clearly only in it for her looks - he didn't like her as a person, had nothing in common with her, didn't understand her artwork, and hated the "sex". The trauma he went through just to keep seeing her was insane.

My favourite part was very close to the end

when Irina realises that nothing she does seems to actually shock anyone, nothing she does induces real controversy or fear - that her looks, her "charming" accent, her social class, her gender, are ruining the affect she is trying to have on men.