Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2012
384 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
"I study the photo in the same way that a spy might study the face of a counterpart in a rival organization. I am calm as I make this promise: I am going to find out what you love, then whatever it is, I am going to track it down and I am going to take it away from you."
After the death of Laura's nine-year-old daughter, Betty, is ruled an accident in a hit-and-run, Laura decides to take revenge into her own hands, determined to track down the man responsible. All the while, her inner turmoil is reopening the old wounds of her passionate love affair with Betty's father, David, and his abandonment of the family for another woman.
Haunted by her past and driven to a breaking point by her thirst for retribution, Laura discovers the unforeseen lengths she is willing to go to for love and vengeance.
Paperback original
"A heartfelt and affecting story." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Seldom have the subjects of love, loss, and retribution been treated with such emotional power as they are here. Award winning English author Doughty, who is intrigued by the effects of accidents, has written a masterfully structured novel that is as indelible as it is painful." - Booklist
"Starred Review. [A] fiercely nuanced novel about love and loss... Reminiscent of Alina Bronsky's Broken Glass Park, this portrait of a mother's disintegration and gradual coming to terms with her new reality is a powerful depiction of love, loss, and retribution." - Library Journal
"An incident-packed, emotionally fraught revenge tragedy.... Emotionally raw, sexually frank, psychologically unpredictable." - The Guardian (UK)
"Like Zoe Heller, Doughty is masterful at combining the texture of ordinary, smugly middle-class, contemporary life with the hidden cliff edges of violence and hatred." - Sunday Telegraph (UK)
"A powerful portrait of loss and its psychological consequences." - Independent (UK)
"Gripping, absorbing, beautifully constructed, and written with great sensitivity." - Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
This information about Whatever You Love was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Louise Doughty is the author of the novels Crazy Paving, Dance with Me, Honey-Dew, Fires in the Dark, and Stone Cradle, as well as the nonfiction book A Novel in a Year, based on her popular newspaper column. She has written plays for radio and has worked widely as a critic, broadcasting regularly for BBC Radio 4. She lives in London.
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