Valencia and Valentine by Suzy Krause

Let's start this review by stating that there is a twist at the end of the book.  A twist that I didn't see coming but that when it came I could see all the little hints that had been given to it.  Now, I may well have missed all the little clues because, quite frankly, I was bored after the first couple of chapters and was generally skim reading rather than actually reading.  So bored I almost gave up on this book completely.

Valencia has a number of psychological issues, the main ones being Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Severe Anxiety.  She is seeing a therapist, Louise, who (in Valencia's eyes) is pretty much useless.  Stuck in the same Debt Collector's job for 17 years, single, friendless and living alone.  Every day is Groundhog Day for Valencia.  Unfortunately it is for the reader as well.  The same descriptions of her mental turmoil, the same reaction to situations, chapter after chapter after chapter.  Honestly even after Peter and Grace start at the Debt Collection Agency Call Centre and she starts speaking to the mysterious James Mace (yeah, I did see that one coming - amazing that Grace didn't) it is the same thing in every chapter.  After 2 or 3 chapters worth of the same information being regurgitated in different words I gave up trying to engage and realised that this book was as bad as I thought it was.  There is nothing that brings you in to Valencia's world, as narrrator of her sections you should be able to feel what she is feeling but with needlessly convoluted sentence structures and obfuscating language it is impossible to empathise with Valencia or see the world through her eyes.

Fortunately there is another protagonist in play; Mrs Valentine.  Elderly and living alone she lives in the same building as her friend Mrs Davies.  When Mrs Davies's Granddaughter is co-opted in to doing regular housework for Mrs Valentine she convinces her to share the story of her romance and marriage with her.  These sections, now these sections, I could get on board with.  Wry humour, plenty of empathy and a grand and glorious tale of travel and love.  Thank goodness that the book is arranged as a chapter from Valencia and then one from Mrs Valentine or else I certainly would have given up.

Initially I felt quite bad about giving my honest opinions on this book.  Mental Health is hard to convey in writing, it's probably even harder to talk about.  However, in my opinion, this book does a dis-service to sufferers of even the mildest forms of Anxiety or OCD.  Something about the portrayal of Valencia makes them seem shameful.  Even worse there was a real touch of "brought this on herself" threading through the story, almost as though Valencia was going out of her way to have these feelings and compulsions in a bid for attention; attention that she would then reject.  Very, very unsettling and peculiar.

Not a book I could recommend at all.  It did leave me feeling unsettled after reading it, like I had witnessed a fatal car crash or something.  From the ending you can tell it is supposed to leave you feeling uplifted and like anything is possible if you just "go with the flow".  It really, really doesn't.