The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill is like the box of Christmas chocolates you don’t want but start eating to be polite and then keep shovelling in because you’re hooked even though they are giving you a stomach ache.

The characters are like lumpy, drool-stained pillows you can’t afford to throw out, which you want to whack, whack, whack in the probably vain hope you can fluff them into somewhat-normal shape.

The cat similes are like a houseguest you find intriguing at first, then who wears on your nerves, then who through persistence becomes an expected—even welcomed—part of your everyday landscape.

In short, the novel is like a puke-churning roller-coaster park of a world that makes you whoop and holler—from fun! from nausea!—and you’re so, so relieved to get off and then you remember it fondly and consider doing it again.

Have you read it? What did you think?

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