Leila Slimani | ADELE

Plot (via Goodreads):

Adèle appears to have the perfect life: She is a successful journalist in Paris who lives in a beautiful apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But underneath the surface, she is bored--and consumed by an insatiable need for sex.

Driven less by pleasure than compulsion, Adèle organizes her day around her extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making. Suspenseful, erotic, and electrically charged, Adèle is a captivating exploration of addiction, sexuality, and one woman's quest to feel alive.

Review:

After a rather long path of psychological thrillers and police procedurals, I definitely needed a break from that world and was desiring something to cleanse my palate. I find any story of addiction to be completely harrowing and psychologically challenging and with one of my favorite movies being Shame starring Michael Fassbender, I was eager to pick up a copy of Adele by Leila Slimani which features almost a similar plot. I was not prepared for what was to come next. 

Adele is such a fantastically written character. She's unapologetic and flawed, yet someone you want to come out on top. The unspoken underdog of this novel, you watch Adele make these decisions hat you want to hold her back from making, yet I found myself in complete awe of this story. While some parts were extremely graphic due to the nature of the novel, I still found this one completely interesting and a quick read that packs a heavy punch. 

The pacing to this novel is stunning. At first it's kind of a sultry tale of addiction and a woman who is living two lives and before you know it, your eyes are glued to the pages as the unraveling of Adele eagerly gobbles up the reader and doesn't spit you out until the finale that was both to me shocking and beautifully done. I absolutely loved the downward spiral that Adele finds herself in and yet I felt for her and her family. I found myself wondering the entire time how this one would end. Does she die? Is she cured? Does nothing happen? What I was left with was a cyclone of emotions as I read the finale chapter not once, but twice. I often find myself thinking about the ending to this novel and how I just found it to be utterly emotional and yet mysterious. Well played, Leila Slimani. Well played.

Rating: 4/5