He said/she said rape accusation story. Determined avoidance of proper nouns & thin Utopian setting mean it wobbles between highly artificial and completely unconvincing.

tw: rape, sexual assault, abuse, drug use, professor-student relationship

Trigger warnings are required for this novel, because it is based on all of those things. That's where the story comes from, so you can't read them... don't read this.

That being said, if you can read those things and want to try a very unique novel, give this one a try.

Raimo doesn't give any of the characters names; and it is told from the perspective of Him and Her, i.e. the Professor and his Partner. They lived in what is meant to be a utopian sort of community after the rest of the world has crashed, but the community is as bland in it's desire to have social equality as it is repressive in it's desire to ensure that it remains a 'utopia.'

Both Her and Him came from somewhere else with the desire to find a place among all the rules (there are rules about where furniture can be placed and there are rules about what you must contribute to the community) and away from the chaos of home.

The novel begins with a former student of the Professor turning up to tell his Partner that he raped her two years ago and that she is starting the process to have him expelled from the community.

From there, the story of why they wanted to fit in and how they don't, why they don't want to fit in and how the do is told as the Professor's case goes through the self-proclaimed fair system of justice in the community. It's stark and it's not easy to read, because of what caused it all but...

...in the end it is a fascinating look at, simply put, how the grass is very rarely greener on the other side.

(Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the chance to read this book. I apologize for how long it took for me to get to it.)

An interesting concept but the execution left me cold. I found it impossible to connect with any of the characters (and I should have been sympathetic to someone, anyone). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. it's certainly topical.

Another reviewer noted that they didn’t know what the point of The Girl At The Door was and I have to admit I feel the same way. The characters are unlike able and under developed; the whole plot felt under developed and ultimately I did not finish the book because I couldn’t see the point in spending any more of my time on it. It is extremely rare for me to DNF a book - I’ve done it with maybe 3 in the last 3 years - so I’m sorry to say I had to put this one down. Thank you, as always, to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. A full review will be posted on Amazon and Goodreads

Peeps, I have no idea what the point of Veronica Raimo's The Girl at the Door is. I suppose one could loosely describe it as being about relationships. However, even that possibility has me shaking my head. With no plot, no world-building, and no character development, I don't even know what I read.

The characters, if you could call them that, are awful - selfish to the point of narcissistic, rude, and without any semblance of concern or love to connect one to the other. The He character, the male in the relationship, stands accused of rape and spends his portions of the novel reflecting on the love (or lust or obsession?) he felt for this student accuser. He doesn't consider the sex acts in question as rape because they were, in his opinion, mutually desired at the time.

The She character spends all of her time wondering why she moved to this other country to be with him, how she doesn't believe the accusations (because they perform the very same sex acts as those listed in the accusation), and how being pregnant with his child makes her life in this foreign country easier to bear. There is also some obsession on her part towards the accuser.

I really struggle with any novel right now that tries to show an accused rapist as somewhat sympathetic. In my opinion, Ms. Raimo attempts to do just that with her male character. Except, I don't believe we need more novels that call into question the validity of a victim's story or remind us how one person's idea of rape could be different from someone else's. In fact, this aspect of whatever the hell you want to call this book is not just disturbing but rather disgusting too.

Maybe The Girl at the Door reads better in its original Italian. My impressions of this translated version are of crassness, bitterness, and of almost gleefully disturbing voyeurism into the sex lives of others. I only finished it because I wanted to determine if this idyllic society would find him guilty or not. One should not feel relief upon finishing a book, but relief is what I felt. I felt dirty while reading The Girl at the Door, something I hope no one ever has to feel about any book.

I’m sure there is a message or meaning to this book but I did not discover it. It was a “strange” read for me, but I’m sure others will love it.
Many thanks to Grove Atlantic and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I couldn't get into it and there was too much sexual content in it for my liking.

I don't believe that this book is meant for everyone. After just having a real life experience on the subject I'm not sure what to think off this. I'm not sure it really hits it.

Spare and slightly sinister, a woman's boyfriend is accused of sexual assault in a utopian country. The woman and her boyfriend are both foreigners. She is pregnant with his child. The judgment of the man will be carried out by committee. Told between the man and woman's perspectives, the story unfolds, never fully revealing the true nature of the crime or the wider backdrop of the community except for the reader to question the ways in which their own world and relationships is the same.

This book was just plain weird! Told in alternating voices of Her (the girlfriend) and Him (the Professor/boyfriend) we are never given their names and never really get to know them. Nor do we ever find out where the utopian country of Miden is located (or even if it was a utopian country). The book gives no names throughout and very little information. When the Professor is accused of rape (from a relationship two years prior), the Commission (whoever that is) investigates. There is way too much emphasis on their sex life throughout (at times rather graphic ... yuck!) and other than that there isn’t much to the story. Thankfully it was a very quick read, but still a waste of my time!

This book is weird. The characters don't have names. Most of the happenings are not clear. The author tends to overwhelm the reader with too many disconnected details. It was hard for me to finish this book.

I'm not sure what I expected out of this book, but whatever this turned out to be wasn't it. While six months pregnant, the female main character finds out that one of her boyfriend's student is accusing him of raping her. The rest of the story deals with how this sort of accusation works in this society built in response to a post-apocalyptic economic crash, along with the emotions and reactions this betrayal brings into a relationship.

The most fun I had from this book was figuring out how the society--Miden--worked and what sort of values it was based on. However, my main problem was that I greatly disliked all the characters. I felt bad for the female main character at first, but as the story went on, I disliked her more and more. The male main character is absolutely awful and I didn't like him at all at any point in the story.

I know the story isn't really supposed to be about who the characters are as people (likely why nobody is given names); rather, it deals with society and politics and how sex plays into all of that, but that in itself wasn't enough to hook me in. The plot meandered, and even the ending was predictable and lackluster. It's not an unenjoyable read, it's also not something I'm excited to share or that I think offers anything special. This might be a book that is better when you study it in a class or for a particular purpose rather than reading it for enjoyment.

Thank you netgalley, the publisher and author.
Unfortunately, I did not like this book, this topic or utopia was not for me.

A nameless 6-months pregnant woman is finding her place in Miden. Miden is a future society that has grown out of “The Crash”. The woman lives with her nameless boyfriend, who is a professor. One day the woman receives a visit from a young girl who claims that she once had a violent relationship with the woman’s boyfriend while the girl was his student. The girl has made a complaint to those in charge of Miden and they are taking testimony and deciding whether the boyfriend should be banned from Miden. In alternating chapters, the woman and man reflect on their relationship.

This book is being publicized as literary fiction. I would place it more in the erotica genre, and low class erotica at that. The language is consistently and needlessly obscene as are the sex scenes. I don’t consider myself a prude and believe that sexual scenes can have a powerful effect when done properly. However, this is more of a case where the story is just an excuse for writing trashy scenes.

I really did try to ignore the language and look beneath that for something of substance but was unable to find it. I was fooled by the literary fiction description, by the fact that it has been bought for a TV series, by the fact that it was felt good enough to translate into English from Italian, and by reviews such as this: “this uncompromising, fiercely intelligent novel confirms the moral usefulness of serious art”. Maybe it was just me. I’ll give it two stars because there were short sections involving the pregnant woman when she was talking about the baby that I found interesting. But this is not one that I can recommend.

Sometime you read books that are provocative and it helps the plot. Other times, you read books with explicit sex scene and you wonder...why? Why did I pick up this weird book? The Girl at the Door is kind of both. Miden is an island that at first glance is a utopia. An unnamed woman falls in love with a man and moves to Miden to be with him.

Six month later, the unnamed woman is pregnant and opens the door to a young woman, who says she was raped by the unnamed woman's boyfriend.

This book is hard to read. The boyfriend/rapist is sexist and the entire "utopia" is only a utopia to sexist creeps.

I think this is supposed to be one of those deep, thought provoking book but I was just annoyed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

“After the girl came to see me, I couldn’t get rid of her presence in the house.”

Utopian islands can be just as corrupt as the imperfect, filthy, declining societies people long to escape, all it takes is a germ in their midst, but is the germ a false accusation or a rapist? Miden and it’s citizens must never transgress against their rules, their society runs on adherence to it’s beliefs, and what’s a bigger violation than the accusation of rape? This act is a stain that can spread and destroy this perfect world. Here they live in a blanket of security, peace after the mysterious “Crash”, something happened in the larger world, and though ‘the worst is over’, according to politicians, it is Miden that “SHE” ( first just a tourist) tells us she wanted to live in, to be safe from the threat of the outside. “He” (the successful professor) was already a citizen with ‘a prospect of a solid future’ when they met and fell in love. Miden, where they are obsessed with statistics and the best place for “Quality of life”, encompassing “trust in the future, social equality, human rights, etc” but the most telling for this story is its supply of “women’s freedom”.

The novel opens with “She” answering the knock of a visitor at their door, who asks her “Are you the professor’s wife?”

“She” the girlfriend, doesn’t yet realize the enormity of what this former student, this skinny, pretty young girl is about to reveal. Pregnant with the professor’s child (carrying his very future in her belly), how does she face the ugliness of what this stranger is accusing him of, what it will do to this sheltered life they live, that they worked so hard for? Certainly the man she loves isn’t capable of such things, and why now? It was two years ago, in the past, right?

“Because I didn’t know then. Now I know.”

What is a crime, how do we come to understand that we have been a victim? What if youth was a blinder, and we didn’t know how sorely we were being wronged? What if the awakening to the crime happens when the wisdom of a few years sheds light on it? Is it then still a crime? Do crimes have an expiration date? Do people get to escape punishment because time was on their side, because someone didn’t know better how to protect themselves, if they didn’t realize what was happening at the time? Is it a crime if someone met with you willingly, if you allowed it, didn’t have the sense to prevent it, to say no? What if it becomes a crime in the telling and others examine it and help you see the ‘affair’ framed darker? After all, she was a ‘young student’, isn’t that crime enough? Her youth, his position of power as her teacher?

Through “Him” it’s a wildly different story, from the very act of saving her panties ‘for months’. For “Him” it was a wildly erotic time and he can’t believe the ‘Commission” and most especially his girlfriend is taking any of this seriously. The absurdity of it all! This could cost him his enviable life in Miden, his very relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, his future! To him it was an affair(in the sense it goes against the teacher/student rules, a sordid thing), ‘wrong’ sure, but an affair, not anything violent or criminal.

Who do we believe? With the accusation “She” goes back and chews on their relationship, from their first meeting to the pregnancy and everything in between, as if picking for clues for or against his character. “She” has a bigger role in the entire investigation, in whether he is ‘unworthy’ of being a citizen or not, to be banished or not. The accuser, and how “She”(the girlfriend) is irritated, annoyed by her, curious about her behavior, looking for ‘theater’, almost as an escape out of believing the worst about”Him” or as evidence of his innocence. This is a provocative moment in the novel. If you attribute it to our current news, wonder at the women who stand by their man, why, why the anger is often aimed at the alleged victim, it begins to make sense. It also lends people insight into why in some cases women wait, until they are adults, until they are braver- to take the steps to search for justice. On the flip side of the coin, what about the men? Are they monsters, are they guilty if in their head they are reading the situation, the acts completely wrong?

This is an engaging novel, but Miden itself sort of got in the way for me. I didn’t see it as a Utopia personally, the people came off as holier than thou, above humanity as trying to strive for some flawless society, I mean- who decides? Then again, what sort of world do we live in now, where people still blame women when they are assaulted? Hmmm… What about cases where there is consent, if you consent, how is a man to know he is hurting you? That is a question people still pick over. Throw youth into the mix, the awe of those in power, shouldn’t someone be reigning in their desires? Shouldn’t it be the person with the power, and yet too we are all humans and flawed. It’s a slippery slope.

What beats in me is the “WHY NOW”… that’s a current question in many cases, allowing disbelief, doubt in the accuser to slip in for many people. There isn’t just one answer.

It’s interesting to me that there isn’t naming of the characters, they remain HIM/HER, the accuser… I don’t know if it’s intended but it’s like you protect all parties without thinking about them beyond their sexual identity (male, female). Then I went off the rails and in my thinking, naming is vital- isn’t it? Particularly if that name is loaded, ‘rich, successful, beloved’ it absolutely alters how strangers look at an accusation. Naming changes things, for good and bad. The reader feels sympathy for each of them, and disgust here and there. Just who risks the most? There is selfish thought, of course there is, we are the center of our story, anyone that disrupts our security, our future can easily be seen as the guilty party. It was engaging, but Miden was a weird society. You believe each of their views, even if they discredit themselves too.

Publication Date: October 18, 2019

Grove Atlantic

Grove Press, Black Cat

The Girl at the Door takes us to a mythical country called Miden. Miden is supposedly a place like Eden, or Camelot, where life is good. There is a basic standard of living that every citizen has. There is medical care and maternity leave. The country is run by Commissions that make the decisions affecting the citizens. If you aren’t born in Miden, you must apply to visit and to live there. Applications are carefully reviewed before granting anyone access. And if you break the rules, the punishment might find you moving back where you came from.

The novel is told from two points of view, his and hers, and that’s all we know about the two main characters. They are partners, and she is pregnant with his child. He works at the Academy, as a professor of philosophy. One day a girl appears at their door when he is at work. She states that she must talk to the girlfriend (her) about the boyfriend (him.) The girl had an affair with Him before he met Her. She no longer considers it an affair, she feels she was pressured into having sex with him. He is being charged with rape. This is how the story begins.

This novel was originally published in Italian. Not sure if it was the translation, but it was very stilted. The dialogue, the flow, felt very choppy to me. The switch from Her to Him sometimes was odd. The land of Miden was never fully explained, only hints here and there of the world having a huge crash. There were times that I felt very confused by the book. I just held onto the Him and Her part of the story to keep track. I didn’t love this book, and at times I simply wanted to quit. The end was pretty good, so I’m glad I finished it.

3 stars on Goodreads


This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com close to publication date.

This provocative fable challenges the culture of political correctness: On a utopian, no wait, dystopian island named Miden, people live the Miden Dream of hardcore mindfulness and moderation. Society is organized by commisions, and everyone has to participate in this system that sets up and controls the rules - it's no coincidence that in this tale, no one has a name. One day, "the girl" (who, more accurately, is a young university student) knocks at the door of a philosophy professor's pregnant girlfriend and tells her that two years ago, the prof has raped her, but that back then, she did not realize that she was subjected to violence. While it remains undispted that the two had an affair, the unsettling aspect of the story is that it never becomes clear whether the prof was abusing his position or whether he even raped the student (we also don't know whether the girl was a minor).

Thus starts a process of questioning and peer-reviewing the prof and his girlfriend, both of them immigrants from an unknown place in financial turmoil where people eat spaghetti (author Veronica Raimo is Italian) - and the dissection of their characters goes far beyond the issue at hand. Are they worthy of living in Miden, or will they be thrown out? Alternating between the viewpoints of the prof and his girlfriend, we witness them grappling with different memories and positions, with their fear and humiliation, and while the prof certainly makes numerous questionable remarks, the way the society depicted handles the case is also disturbing: There is no difference between fact and emotion, there is no room for nuance, and as the story moves along, the egalitarian society appears more and more alienating.

So the premise of the book is certainly daring and smart, but Raimo tends to overburden her tale with too many unconnected details about Miden that pile up until the story tumbles: The last third is just too convoluted. Still, this is a young writer to watch, because she dares to ask some uncomfortable questions and examines the ambiguous, shifting nature of human relationships.

I thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. This author was new to me and I was not let down. It was a great story and very well written. The characters were easy to relate to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend this to everyone!!