Creep

This book made my skin crawl. Alice cleans Tom’s apartment every Wednesday and is fully convinced that He is her boyfriend and they are in love. Perhaps it is because He sent her a smiley face in the booking app? Because He was kind to her, when most people aren’t. To Alice, it shows that they are meant to be. She tells her family, her coworkers that Tom is her boyfriend. She tells them of the dates they go on, the trips they take, His favorite things to do. She stalks Him online, in person, eats the food in His fridge, deletes unread emails from His password-less laptop that she doesn’t want Him to see. Clearly, Alice is crazy. And this psychosis is described in such clear detail that it truly makes the reader uncomfortable. In her personal life, Alice suffers from self harm and binge eating disorder, likely a trigger from an adolescent memory. She believes that nobody loves her, despite her family’s constant attempts to communicate with her. She believes she is ugly, despite James (a date setup by a coworker) telling her she is beautiful. She believes she is anti-social, despite invites by colleagues to go out for drinks every weekend. Alice is paranoid, she is obsessive, she is not well. She makes impulsive decisions on the basis that they will bring her and Tom together, at last. Someone get this girl a therapist ASAP.