Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - My Policeman

I wanted to read this book due to the upcoming film and as a Harry Styles fan, I wanted to get ahead and read the book before watching the film. I hate to say this, and it always kills me, I hope and pray that the film is better because this book was rough.

From the moment Marion first lay eyes on Tom – her best friend’s big brother, broad, blond, blue-eyed – she is smitten. And when he comes home from the National Service to be a policeman, Marion who is a newly qualified teacher is determined to win him. Unable to acknowledge the signs that something is amiss, she plunges into this marriage, sure that her love is enough for both of them. But Tom has another life, another equally overpowering claim on his affections. Patrick who is a curator at the Brighton Museum, is also besotted with his policeman, and opens Tom’s eyes to a world previously unknown to him. But in an age when those of “minority status” were condemned by society and the law, it is safer for this policeman to marry his childhood friend. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed. This book is set in 1950s in Brighton.

This book was tough. I was expecting it to be a gay love story from either Patrick’s and Tom’s point of view. Having half of the book in Marion’s point of view, wasn’t expected and dragged. I was wanting more for forbidden love story that just sort of never happen. I feel like there was too many gaps in this book. One minute Marion and Tom are children, then teenagers, then old, but then not old again. It all got very confusing. I struggled to get into this book and fell like it was one big rant. I would have loved to maybe have a few chapters from the “minor” characters like Sylvie and Michael and to hear what they thought. I would have loved some chapters from Tom’s point of view and seeing how he felt, we only know how we think he felt from Marion and Patrick’s point of view. Marion was horrible, horrible woman. She knew what she was signing up for and expected Tom to change who he was for her.

Overall, this book is not a love story or a forbidden romance. It is a brutal and a difficult read especially from what happened to Patrick whilst he was trying to live his true life. I hope to God for once they change the ending of in this book in the movie adaptation.

Content Warnings