A review by sucreslibrary
I Want You More by Swan Huntley

2.5

i rarely read thrillers, maybe 2 or 3 a year, so I'm not super knowledgeable on what is common for the genre or what tropes are overplayed aside from the most obvious ones. this is one that, once it really got going, I couldn't put it down but the further I get away from it the more I dislike it.

I thought it was doing something interesting with the "frog boiling in water" aspect of the abuse, how it slowly ramped up until it got to truly horrible levels, and how it had the MC still have extremely complicated feelings towards her abuser. showing this with a f/f relationship was also good, and we never got a "the villainous character has been faking her attraction the whole time!" reveal like I started to worry we would. but then... that epilogue really ruined all of that! I really hate when a work tells me straight to my face "maybe this part was all a lie" instead of letting that be a more subdued theme about the nature of memory and retellings. with that epilogue, and with some other elements of this, I don't think I can say it really respected and handled the nature of abusive relationships well. it felt severely cheapened by the end and like it was just being used for shock factor. I don't think a victim has to be "perfect" in that they're allowed to fight back, make "wrong" decisions, etc., but the ending felt like it was really painting the MC in a certain light and I didn't appreciate it. it also just felt out-of-character after being with this woman for so long and seeing how her brain worked. 

 

 

I understand where a lot of people have issues with her, thinking she's extremely gullible and dumb, but with the last chunk of the book before the epilogue I found it harder to slight her. I think her decisions were largely born out of grief and desperation, and I don't enjoy blaming her for the abuse she eventually suffered due to her falling under the spell of a manipulative person. I think if the book had leaned into that more (while still allowing her to be a not-perfect victim) then the abuse aspect would have felt more respected and not just a cheap thriller plot. really, just erase that "two years later" section entirely as well as the MC being painted as "just like her abuser".