In a way, Crossan has painted herself into a corner here. In Dolores she has created a character with trauma who barely acknowledges that trauma even to herself. We might expect such a character to expose their pain, deal with it and emerge a wiser and happier person. But if an author rejects this "healing journey" trope as being too cliched, she is left with limited options ... Crossan’s style reflects the content. Dolores’s first-person narration is written in flat, affectless prose, with short sentences that give little away ... The astute reader may well guess this secret within the first 50 pages, but piecing together the events that formed Dolores’s ultra-avoidant character is still fairly enjoyable.
A darkly comic, wholly original novel ... A timely read, sure to appeal to book groups that enjoy the work of Gary Shteyngart, Ottessa Moshfegh, or Dave Eggers.
