This is Not a Love Song

Karen Duve

Anne is not a particularly likeable character so it's hard to have empathy with her problems which range from self harm, obesity, ecological disasters and music trends. Her saving grace, in this dark comedy, is a great sense of humour and an ability to laugh both at herself and the other people in her life.

Extract

When you realise you're going crazy the best idea is to keep quiet about it and pretend you're in perfect mental health by behaving like everybody else.
... So I went to bed with men too, and I went to bars with women, I failed to make the grade in various jobs, I was bored out of my mind at parties and elsewhere ... and I carved patterns on my upper arms with a potato-peeling knife on Sundays.

Parallels