Adèle

recommended by 1 person

sourced from public statements

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  Lucy Foley

  “I found this book gripping and deeply troubling and, as with Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny, I couldn’t stop thinking about it long after reading it. Adèle is a deeply flawed, fairly unlikable and yet utterly fascinating character. She’s a woman who seems to have it all: the stellar career, the beautiful apartment, the surgeon husband, the family. And yet she is a sex addict who regularly risks everything for the thrill of a quick hook up — the more debasing and sordid the better. Initially these hook ups are with strangers but perhaps to make the thrill all the greater — by making the encounter more dangerous — she moves things closer to home, propositioning a neighbor’s husband at a dinner party. It’s about desire and self-destructiveness, about impulse control. It feels like a 21st century take on Madame Bovary and the film Belle du Jour. It’s arguably not technically a thriller but it has the grip and pace of one, and the reader is left on tenterhooks waiting to find out whether Adèle will finally push things too far, whether the house of cards that is her perfect life will come tumbling down around her.”↗