Don't Be a Stranger
An intricately veined and gloriously colored specimen. Rather than a book you 'can’t put down,' it’s one you might pause from precisely to prolong its mild suspense and poetic pleasures ... Experimental flourishes, risky but brilliant, in the manner of psychedelics — just go with them. Otherwise, most of the novel passes in a dreamy cycle of coitus.
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Emotionally raw ... A novel of erotic obsession, as facilitated by the lure and frustrations of texting. Minot’s sex scenes are sketch-like, evocative but not detailed. Her emotional precision about Ivy’s shifting feelings gives the novel heft, even if her protagonist seems, at times, bafflingly obtuse ... Minot creates a searing portrait of both sexual addiction and self-delusion. The novel holds a mirror up to anyone who has ever fixated on an elusive love object ... Shows how powerfully transformative a sexual entanglement can be for a woman starved for sensation and attention. And how a lover’s approach-avoidance behavior can curdle pleasure into obsession.
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Minot writes in her characteristic style that is both dreamy and precise ... In real life, we often become impatient with friends in the grip of an obsession, erotic or otherwise. So, too, in fiction, where it’s crucial that readers at a minimum remain interested in the lives of the characters. Minot succeeds intermittently in making us care about Ivy. As for Ansel, it’s obvious from the start that he’s pretty much of a jerk.
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