Sylvie is happy only when she’s in therapy. This is because Sylvie is in love with her therapist; she thinks about her every second they’re not together (roughly 167 hours and 10 minutes per week). In that room, Sylvie is able to talk about everything: the false hope promised by eighties music; what a dog’s inner life is really like and how sad, she, Sylvie is, outside that room. She’s aware she has an obsession, but whether it’s some flavor of erotic transference or a lost person’s need to connect, Sylvie isn’t sure.
Faith has created a wonderfully likable and empathetic character longing for connection to others and reckoning with the next level of emotional maturity ... Faith presents interesting insights into the client-therapist relationship in this strong character-driven novel, featuring a realistic, even quirky portrayal of someone coming of age.
Faith masterfully balances Sylvie’s dialogue-heavy sessions with her counselor with unflinchingly honest descriptions of her inner thoughts and surroundings. Fans of Judith Rossner’s August and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017) will enjoy this slow-paced novel of one woman’s journey to find happiness without asking for permission.
Witty and irreverent ... Faith’s razor-sharp prose and Sylvie’s fanciful thinking sustain the offbeat narrative. Readers will fall in love with this meditative and heartfelt novel.
