‘Mad’ by Chloe Esposito #BookReview #FridayReads

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Alvina Knightly: Uncensored. Unhinged. Unforgettable. 

‘There’s something you should know before we go any further: my heart is in the wrong place. Now don’t say I didn’t warn you . . .’

Perhaps that’s why nothing in Alvie’s life has ever gone right? Until now.

She can finally abandon her credit card debt – and her fruitless three-way relationship with Tinder and Twitter – when fate gives her the chance to steal her identical twin’s perfect life.

It’s just a shame Beth had to die to make Alvie’s dreams come true.

So begin seven days of sex, violence and unapologetic selfies – one wild week that sees Alvie break every rule in the book. She never did have much respect for boundaries.

It might be madness, but rules are meant to be broken. Right?

Mad is the first in the sexy, shocking and compulsively readable Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know trilogy.

Alvie is a twin, and her life in London couldn’t be more different from that of her happily married sister Beth, in Sicily with her gorgeous husband and adorable baby, wearing designer clothes and living in a luxurious villa in the shadow of Mount Etna. Beth has the life Alvie wants.

Then Alvie gets an invitation (and a first class ticket) from Beth and she begins a sex and drug-fuelled trip that turns into a killing spree. At last Alvie’s found something she’s good at. But what’s really behind Beth’s invitation?

This is a really different book. It’s definitely uncensored and Alvie is definitely unhinged. It’s violent and Alvie is clearly a psychopath. But she’s also horribly funny and some of the situations she gets herself into are so mad that it’s difficult not to laugh. But she’s a horrible person and there really isn’t anything about her to counteract the terrible things she does.

But I think that that’s what makes this book so different. It makes you feel uncomfortable; Alvie makes you feel uncomfortable. There are no soft edges to her, nothing that invokes your sympathy. And that’s a brave character for the author to write.

I did think there were a few places where the writing could be tightened up a bit and where things were a bit too extreme, even for Alvie. But on the whole this is a fast-paced, uncomfortably funny book. And I’ll read the next in the trilogy, just to see what on earth Alvie gets up to next.

Thanks to the publisher for a free copy for review

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