monster love - Rated 
This is a really excellent book. Yes it is true, it confronted me with an unspeakable crime, but the horror is somehow made manageable by the author. As I gradually got to learn more about the parents and their appalling backgrounds, the crime seemed to become part of a context, rather than something inexplicable.
By introducing new characters who are all connected with the central characters, I thought the author gradually cast the net wider and wider, like a pair of binoculars expanding my thoughts and my understanding. Although it may sound strange, this book really helped me to realize how an unspeakable crime can happen, how a parent can kill their own child. By the end of the book I felt I had been on harrowing but also worthwhile journey, and I think this book should be read by social workers, child care workers, therapists or anyone who has to deal with the result of children suffering at the hands of adults' cruelty. As another reviewer of the book put it, it is hard to blatantly confront the dark side of human behaviour, yet it also seems so important not to shy away from it. In my opinion it is this achievement that makes this book worth 5 stars.
Unputdownable - Rated 
There are few books that I read at a sitting, but this is one of them. I found it mesmerising from the start. I love the wit, the sharpness and the lightness. I love the details of suburban life (fluorescent condoms) and the chatty, gossipy style which distracts from the obviously horrendous subject matter. I was seduced by the fact that such a seriously scary book could be so enjoyable. The second half is more demanding and the nature of obsessive love becomes acutely exposed. I would not miss the experience of reading such an extreme version of a novel. Tough but therefore all the greater.
Monster Love - Rated
An astonishingly brave book detailing the pyschoses that make up our responses to the world. Brendan and Sherilyn are victims of their own fates; and the resulting actions of these two underdeveloped individuals is a monster love indeed. The pace of the novel tears along tearing your heart and emotions with it. A truly bracing read by an author from whom I'm sure we will hear much more in the future.
A new architecture - Rated
What I most appreciated about this book is its interesting and unexpected structure. This is no suspense novel; from the first chapter on, we can easily guess that something unspeakably horrible happened to poor little Samantha.
I must say that, as I expected some sort of mystery novel, I felt a bit disappointed after finishing this chapter.
But I quickly grasped that the book's architecture was intended to be completely different, and I found it more and more interesting as each character, whether major or minor, gets to give his/her point of view on the different steps of the story and adds his psychological input. This way, we have a multi-focal viewpoint on the whole story as it develops in time, and I felt it was like a puzzle identifying the different "speakers" and fitting their viewpoints together.
For me, definitely something new about the approach of the crime story.
Yes, the story is awful, yes, Brendan and Sherilyn are true monsters (but the book sheds some light as to how those two "monsters" are themselves the product and victims of monstruous parents, although this is no excuse), yes, the mere idea of little Samantha dead since weeks in her cage is gruesome - but it is superbly constructed.
Horrendous - Rated 
I picked this book up while waiting in a railway station; I distantly remembered reading a favourable review of it and thought I would give it a try. I only gave this book one star because they would not let me put none.
The books only good point is that it is fluidly written, a hard task as the chapters skip from different peoples view point,and I read it in one sitting- perhaps only because the thought was in the back of my mind I would not want to pick up this book again. The subject matter is so horrible that I cannot imagine anyone enjoying it. Some parts had me cringing- with enough of these horrors occurring daily on television and in our papers, why anyone would like to read a fiction about it is beyond me.
The characters are simply sketched, with the main protaginists not revealing any depths. The 'nosy' neighbour was a bit too obvious for me, and the *psychic connection* at the end was too far fetched and didn't link into with anything else in the book. Half way through the book the thought struck me that it seemed like a wooden, fictional account of a case study- a thought only reinforced when I read that the author works in psychoanalysis.
I would not recommend this book on many levels, but the lack of depth to the plot, and the harrowing subject matter are my main complaints. I hope that the author will turn her pen to less distressing subjects next time.
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