Adele

Product Information

I assume it had to be a kind of psychological study of a person in the grip of addiction, in a tangle of desires impossible to satiate. I also liked reading about Adele’s backstory and how it wasn’t the really stereotypical kind of portrayal of a emotionally shallow female sex addict.

There were times where the character’s description was basic, and sometimes Adele’s presence would be too exposed, but all the characters are different in their own way, and every story has its purpose and its lesson. Lending her a pair of shoes, picking the kids up from the school gate, lying to the police… How far would you go for your best friend? Nadia, a single mother from Amman, emerges as a formidable character, determined to carve a brighter future for her son in a society where gender biases run deep. They don’t want to be outcasts so they marry, have children, work at respectable careers---YET, this doesn’t mean they are able to quash their secret SELF.

Tahar Ben Jelloun, reviewing it for one of the French papers, pointed out that most Moroccan novelists produce a first book about the maghrebain experience, whereas this is a purely French novel.

Instead, it reads as if more interested in exploring the possibilities of extremes and reclaiming their potential as literary devices beyond that of mere shock-creation. As in both of those books, there is a comeuppance, a reckoning that implies the lack of value accorded to female lives and sexuality, and the irrepressible urge to control them. Otherwise, Adele is an unremarkable and forgettable character portrait of a troubled person behaving incongruously for reasons nobody knows – as meaningless as all the sex Adele has!I found virtually nothing to relate to in Adele’s character, and it was really hard to have any sympathy for her. Adèle hat alles: den vorzeigbaren Arzt-Ehemann und niedlich-Sohn, den Job bei der Tageszeitung, die schicke Wohnung in Paris. She appreciates her role in life for the social status it affords her and, most importantly, for the useful cover it provides for her secret compulsion. The Franco-Moroccan novelist Leïla Slimani’s Lullaby won the Prix Goncourt in 2016 and swiftly became a bestseller here last year. Adèle fucks anyone and everyone: her husband's colleagues, random strangers, family friends, professionals.

The language barrier is proving tricky, and the company of a gorgeous American stranger is proving tempting. So this short novel is slightly flawed, but hey, this was Slimani's debut, and she was certainly not playing it safe, and I appreciate that. The domestic noir genre is very lucky to have Adele Parks, she is a magnificent author, which is down to books such as One Last Secret. This extremely dark novel reads like a true story, a horrible story; one that has you wincing, yet unable to tear your eyes away from the page.I wonder how many book reviews – my own, and other people's – have begun with the words '[name of main character] seems to have it all'.