This is not a book to read if you don't have the capacity to be patient with a deeply flawed white woman character. I'm serious, because there's no point reading something that you know you'll hate and then waste emotion on it by rage-baiting yourself. You'll need a willingness to be empathetic to make it through this one, especially at the end. Also it has horror elements and a whole slew of trigger warnings so please consider those. I can't say I 'enjoyed' it but personally, I found it affecting and honest in an ugly way. There's no sugar-coating the protagonist's psyche.

On the whole, it is about one woman's death drive. Elise is white, college-educated, and her parents can afford to help her live comfortably, but she wants to be different, morally better somehow. She wants to eat organic food and be vegetarian and rely on herself and work for her money instead of just inheriting it, but she's also a huge girlfailure who can't manage her finances or get it together. She's depressed but can't afford her credit card debt, let alone medication. Most debilitatingly, she also has an eating disorder from childhood.

For five years she has been dating Tom, a trust fund kid who is also trying to live the working class lifestyle. They are en route to a sugar beet harvest where they will work night shifts for a larger payout. Elise needs this money, unlike Tom. Really weird things happen, almost portentous, e.g., a strange message left behind in a motel pops up again at the factory, there are strange pamphlets anthropomorphising the beets, she hears voices inviting her into the dirt, her meals arrive weird, and most eerily, workers disappear without notice. Is there something going on, or is all a hallucination brought about by extended malnourishment and chronic mental illness? We never know.

did you at least kiss your knuckles before you punched me in the face

Actual rating: 3.5 rounded up
CW: Past death of a parent, misogyny

As the wife of a firefighter/paramedic, I just can't pass up any romance involving a first responder. It's against our marriage contract.