A review by rouge_red
My Heart Hemmed in by Marie NDiaye

reflective slow-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

An odd, unhinged reading experience for me. I've never read through a book where I started off feeling sympathetic for our main character, yet turned on her many times later. I'm glad I pushed through, though the book is more vague than I liked. It's interesting to me how NDiaye decided to write Nadia, who is an unreliable character through and through. And one of the worst people I've been in the head of- racist, miserly, greedy, abusive, etc. The text is certainly claustrophobic and uncertain in turns; in fact you never quite know what Nadia's deal is except she has a lot of internalized *insert -ism*. An unpleasant woman, but quite fascinating nonetheless. Didn't end up loving this one, but really glad I pushed through a book I might have otherwise DNF'd.