A review by bec54321
The Answers by Catherine Lacey

2.0

The initial concept that is the foundation for this book was super interesting to me but it spiralled out into so many directions that in the end I feel like I have no idea what it was actually about. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be a psychological thriller, a thought experiment re: emotional labour, relationships or patriarchal power dynamics, or a meditation on the messiness of the human experience more broadly. The closest approximation I can come up with as to what was meant to be accomplished here is maybe the literary equivalent to an episode of Black Mirror - or actually several episodes mashed together as it was so bloated with different ideas that didn’t ever really intersect. That being said there were quite a few passages throughout that in isolation were very profound to me.