Acts of Desperation

*A BOOKS OF 2021 PICK IN THE NEW STATESMAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, i AND STYLIST*\r\n\r\nPOIGNANT, RAW AND UTTERLY UNIQUE Pandora Sykes\r\n\r\nLove was the final consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead. Oh, dont laugh at me for this, for being a woman who says this to you. I hear myself speak.\r\n\r\nEven now, even after all that took place between us, I can still feel how moved I am by him. Ciaran was that downy, darkening blond of a baby just leaving its infancy. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. None of it mattered in the end; what he looked like, who he was, the things he would do to me. To make a beautiful man love and live with me had seemed - obviously, intuitively - the entire point of life. My need was greater than reality, stronger than the truth, more savage than either of us would eventually bear. How could it be true that a woman like me could need a mans love to feel like a person, to feel that I was worthy of life? And what would happen when I finally wore him down and took it?\r\n\r\nA LOVE STORY LIKE NO OTHER ... INTENSE AND HONEST Karl Ove Knausgaard\r\n\r\nSTUNNING ... A BOOK THAT YOU LIVE IN WHILE YOURE READING IT, AND WHICH THEN LIVES ON INSIDE YOU Olivia Sudjic