Read in prepub. Due out January 2019. I am a sucker for French novels in translation. There is just something about the language and the sensibility that strongly appeals to me. Slimani, whose The Perfect Nanny was one of my favorites this year, tells the story of Adele, bored and stuck in a passive marriage who engages in risky extramarital sex as her life unravels by her own hand.

It's short and compelling and although sex is the driving force of the narrative, it is not a story about sex so much as a story about fulfillment.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book fall somewhere in the middle. Adele is a sex addict in Paris. From the summary, I expected so much more. It's Paris! So classic and romantic. Yet this book brought nothing of the city or the people to light. It was mediocre at best. Adele never came alive. Her way of life doesn't affect anyone around her and especially herself. It was a one note book. I expected so much more especially after reading her last book.

First line: Adele has been good.

Summary: Adele has the perfect life. She has a career as a journalist, her husband is a surgeon and a young son. However, she feels unfulfilled. In order to try to fill the void in her life she has random sexual relations with strangers. When her secret comes out, she must face the consequences of her actions.

Highlights: Slimani’s writing is very good. I liked the flow of the novel and that she gets straight to the point. Plus, there are lots of dirty bits but this is not a bodice ripper or erotica. It mainly deals with the female psyche and the need to feel desired.

Lowlights: This book was very deep. There is a lot of meaning but not a lot happens. I was looking more for a thriller but this was a person study. I really did not like Adele or any of the characters really.

FYI: Slimani’s book The Perfect Nanny was wonderful!

A fast and fun read, though a bit dry at times for a book about sex addiction! Wanted more from the ended, but it was a fascinating character study.

I wanted so badly to love this book, but ultimately I just did not. I thought overall it was a bit strange in how it was written and to me it just lacked so much in the beginning, it was hard to even continue reading it. I was really excited, because I heard such amazing things about The Perfect Nanny, but this one was way less than perfect for me.
Will definitely use in a daily challenge and let the members of Chapter Chatter Pub know about its upcoming release.

I read The Perfect Nanny wanting more - more from that book itself, but also more from the author. And she delivered with Adele. The book Adele is a dark, disturbing, satisfying. The character Adele cannot be satisfied. She is self-destructive and her needs cannot be met. Wife to Richard, mother to Lucien, and journalist. But Adele has a secret life. Her need for anonymous sex and attention from men transforms to her need to be abused by men. To control her desires seems to anesthetize her existence; it is hard to know what to what for Adele.
This book is graphic at times, and not everyone will enjoy it. If you liked Perfect Nanny but wanted to love it, read this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Books for this ARC. I was absolutely thrilled to receive this. I fell hard and fast for The Perfect Nanny and devoured it in one sitting. Nearly the same with this, only it took two sittings because life gets in the way sometimes. I loved it, it was like reading a long poem that dripped like honey. It was a unique and disguised love story of the likes I've never read. This was not a thriller or a mystery, but it was riveting. It was sensual in the way that makes your pupils dilate and your heart hammer, without being vulgar. The best word I can think to describe this, even after all these words, is still: poetic. It was crisp and just perfect. No filler, no messing around, straight to the point with an ending that left you balancing right on the edge. It was wonderful.

I feel like this book was written well, it just wasn't for me. The "erotic" part of the book was a bit off-putting for me, even though I read the synopsis and had the expectation of the subject matter. I felt like it was uncomfortable for me to read because of the underlying mental issues of the main character that were so evident in her behavior and her desperation for a different life that she achieves by lying to the people around her. I think fans of racier literature will enjoy this, it just didn't strike a chord with me.

It's been a long time since a book has left me bereft of words. For reasons unknown to me, I was immediately drawn to this book from the moment I read the synopsis and as soon as I downloaded it I abandoned the book I was previously reading, hell, I abandoned my life, and found myself immersed in this book, finishing it in one sitting.

Adèle is, seemingly, the contented wife of a surgeon, raising a son that she adores while excelling at her job as a journalist. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could be farther from the truth.

I don't know what I was expecting when I started this book but, whatever it was, I didn't get it and THANK YOU TO THE BOOK GODS! This is not a mystery, nor a thriller, and it is certainly not erotic fiction. This story is dark, like dark dark, like suffocatingly dark, featuring the taboo subject of sex addiction.

Following Adèle on her downward spiral into the enslavement of her need for sex with strangers is not unlike that of any other addiction, I could have easily been reading a book about a heroin addict. It's not the sexual release Adèle seeks but the thrill, the high from the adrenalin, the danger and the pain that she feels and, as the reader, it is terrifying.

"Men rescued her from her childhood. They dragged her from the mud of adolescence and she traded childish passivity for the lasciviousness of a geisha."

Leila Slimani is an incredible writer with a style all her own. With this book she has managed to build a morose, tension-filled masterpiece filled with nuances that add incredible depth to an already deep subject. I imagine some readers will be disappointed with the ending but for me it was nothing short of sublime, genius storytelling, leaving me raw with emotion. Not every story should be wrapped up and presented to the reader with a big red bow.


I was provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I’ve read a lot of books with unlikeable female narrators who are lousy wives and mothers and don’t know what to do with themselves - Adele is all that plus French. I never could quite believe that she was a real person and not just at an idea of Woman Unsatisfied; you have to be able to root for a woman like this for the book to work 100%. It never really come off the ground. Three existentiale stars.