A review by ginger_curmudgeon
Love Junkie by Robert Plunket

3.5

“Love Junkie” left me with mixed feelings. After reading the descriptions and some of the quotes, I was looking forward to this, but then it was a very slow go for me and I can’t say for certain why. 

This reminds me of Truman Capote meets “Keeping Up With Appearances” with a couple ladies I’ve known along the way added to the mix. 

Mimi is desperate for attention and acceptance. She goes to great lengths to get those things, but it only lasts so long until the men she’s desperately trying to get to accept her show their true feelings and leave her sad and in need of a new target. Maybe on that sense it hits too close to home. 

Mimi is also obsessed with maintaining certain outward standards that might be of her creation. She is sort of 1980s NYC version of Hyacinth Bucket in that way. She’s very concerned with how others perceive her, to the point that she lies to her therapist and hides things from him. 

Plunket set the novel in NYC in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic and his portrayal fits that time period pretty well. He doesn’t call it out by name, but references things like skin lesions, dramatic weight loss and looking tired and rundown. You know what’s going on with the characters without it being named. I appreciate this portrayal.