Entertaining, turbulent jaunt

No one picking up a book about a crazy ex-girlfriend flight attendant is looking for intellectualism, but

Karen Hamilton’s first novel is smarter and a lot more fun than it sounds. Juliette is a confiding narrator, frank about her motives and when not doing utterly mad things, relatable. She slides in shocking details almost absentmindedly, so the extent of her insanity is revealed through casual asides; it’s a tantalising device, unbalancing the reader by reminding us that we only know what Juliette tells us.

Hamilton is a former flight attendant; her colleagues may not appreciate the glimpse beneath their perfect facade but some of the moments are genuinely revealing: one attendant is just back from maternity leave and her new fear of her job’s dangers is humanising. The professional competency of even the least-stable member of flight staff is not questioned but their possible inner monologues add new terror to flying.

Instead of making the reader wait for a tragic backstory reveal, using it as a twist or mitigating sobstory later on, we have most of the pertinent facts by chapter three. Something of a checklist of the triggers of dysfunction, it’s refreshing to have it upfront; it’s also intriguing, as you wonder what’s left to fill the remaining chapters. This funny, entertaining thriller offers a round-the-world jaunt but expect some turbulence.

By contrast, another novel of obsessive love by a more established writer is less of a trip. Louise O’Neill’s tale of a young woman in a onesided affair with an older man is an unflattering picture of female self-effacement.

Almost Love explores how women conditioned to please men can come to accept exploitative misery and read it as love. It’s very topical in a postWeinstein world but is somewhat undermined by its protagonist. Though abasing herself for the elusive Matthew, failed artist Sarah is not shy of pleasing herself in every other situation, selfishly taking advantage of men and women alike as she pursues her own misguided ends.

The book offers a ringside seat to the crushing humiliation of obsession and its mimicry of love. Sarah’s doomed hopes are played out through awkward trysts and excruciating text exchanges. The reader may identify with Sarah’s compulsive text-checking and desperation to please a distant lover but the consequential shambles she makes of the rest of her life is where the novel sacrifices relatability for drama.

Unable to do her job, destructive towards her friends, abusing substances and food, Sarah has bigger problems than unrequited love. This is partly necessary context, in that Sarah’s dilemma is the result of a lifetime of factors. What’s missing, though, is the other side of Sarah. We’re never shown her at her best; she’s not even functional and it’s hard to see why her friends tolerate her habitual thoughtless cruelty. Some intriguing characters we don’t see enough of offer perspective and nuance. Ultimately though, it’s Sarah’s selfabsorption that fills the pages like the dreary diary you burnt when you came to your senses.

THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND

by Karen Hamilton (Hachette, $35)

ALMOST LOVE

by Louise O’Neill (Hachette, $35) Reviewed by Ruth Spencer