Take Me Apart - Sara Sligar

Fiction

Rating: 9/10

Classified as a suspense thriller, don’t expect this book to besiege you with twists and turns.  This reading experience is a slow burn and all the better for it. There is no easy cliché to be found here, no formulaic dispensing of character or plot.

Years after his artist mother’s suspicious demise, Theo hires an archivist to organize her papers and other personal documents.  Kate is a woman battling some of her own demons and finds herself drawn into the portrait of this woman she is unearthing.  

The literary device of interspersing snippets of the pieces being archived along with the narration of the archivist was brilliant. It allowed the reader to grasp the parallels of these women without them being overtly obvious.  

This is the second novel I’ve read this year that had a backstory that dealt with the struggles of living with mental illness.  Unlike that one, this one does an outstanding job of embodying those moments in a way the reader can feel as keenly as a cut to the flesh.

A standout novel of the highest caliber!

Footnote: The very essence of my personality and the necessity of keeping this labor of love blog fresh compel me to maintain an extensive to be read list.  One that goes out for a few months.  So, its pure and unadulterated joy when I find a book I didn’t plan on.  And when that book turns out to be this good? I imagine that is what heaven feels like!