**Spoilers Ahead, Read On With Caution**
I feel I should start by saying that the main reason I read this book was because whilst at work, the cover grabbed me because of its creepy newspaper cuttings, and then the first couple pages got me. I legitimately stood reading it for about ten minutes before realising you’re not actually meant to do that at work (bookshop myth busting – you cannot actually read at work, like ever). So naturally I then paid for the hardback because was and am too impatient to wait for the paperback, or wait a few days to try and get a proof. 
So I know have a new hardback, and also MY DARK VANESSA too.
Constance Little is a lonely and unattached woman living in London. She’s working in a Doctors Surgery as a receptionist, when she meets Doctor Samuel Stevens the new GP. It’s like she’s been zapped with a love bug as she almost instantaneously feels drawn, connected and tied to Dr Stevens. They befriend each other, but naturally they’re on different pages regarding the relationship as Constance falls deeper into an intense obsession, and Dr Stevens is oblivious.
Easily this can be called one of the most gripping books I’ve read so far in 2020. If you follow these posts about what I’m reading, then you’ll know I mostly enjoy what I’m reading, but I strongly read in the genre of New Adult and Contemporary Romance. Once in a while I read something psychological, like THE ONE or DISCLAIMER, and so IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU was the next one I stumbled upon. Firstly, “if I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby” has been stuck in my head for days, and it in no way matched the actual tone of the book, so that was a fun added side.
Constance was so deluded and obsessed with Doctor Stevens, and by what she thought they had, that it felt borderline impossible to put the book down at times. It was incredibly well written, and written as though a letter clearly retelling the downfall of herself; the downfall of them. Everything is written in past tense, with only a glimpse in the beginning showing us where Constance ends up, and it’s not overly pretty. The book is written in such a way that it really inspires unease and extreme discomfort in the reader. All characters are betrayed as subpar humans, so that in contrast you feel sorry and connected to Constance, when in fact she’s the problem, the obsessive and self tortured. It’s a clever tactic to get you to sympathise with a protagonist you’d otherwise never relate or connect to. Constance is seeing quick to take a sly advantage of other males in her life, Edward the old man who she befriends after an attack to gain entrance to his apartment so she can use his window to look directly into that of Doctor Stevens’. And Dale, her housemate-come-boyfriend, who gives her nothing but the love and affection she craves, but returns none of the affections. She even gets free therapy out of one of the other GP’s at her surgery. She’s a soft spoken, temptress who wheels everyone in to care, but is unable to properly reciprocate as she’s so painfully focused on all she isn’t receiving from Samuel.
Doctor Samuel Stevens is an average West London GP in his late thirties. Nothing particularly special, but he showed kindness to Constance, and without knowing it got caught in her web. The two started with a casual relationship on sleeping together drunkenly a few times, and all Samuel was guilty of was not seeing the delusion and obsession building in Constance by the day. The extremes she goes are truly terrifying.
One thing I will say to conclude this is that for as much as I enjoyed the suspense and pace generally, I found the last ten or so chapters to start feeling a bit rushed. It felt like we suddenly started running to the end. And really, I think as the reader we sort of knew what was going to happen, but it was the how that was so alluring. After all that tension, I thought that the ending was a touch anticlimactic. Not quite what id envisioned as the plot began to thicken and twist. But, I enjoyed it none the less.
BECAUSE BOOKS 