A Kind of Intimacy

Feb 20, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Caris

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Well, it's Europa, of course I was going to try it

Shelves: 2011, in-by-of-england, reviewed

Was your problem with Bridget Jones's Diary that Bridget just wasn't fucked up enough?

This is the book for you.

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Nov 29, 2011 Blair rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary

This deliciously creepy and insinuating novel, Jenn Ashworth's debut, is the story of Annie Fairhurst - as told by this fascinating, contradictory and wholly unreliable character herself. We meet Annie, who is seriously overweight and struggles to interact with others, as she moves - alone - into a new neighbourhood. At first Annie seems to be a fairly ordinary, if rather sad, character. She is lonely, with no family, and appears to have a traumatic past; she is desperate to make friends with he...more This deliciously creepy and insinuating novel, Jenn Ashworth's debut, is the story of Annie Fairhurst - as told by this fascinating, contradictory and wholly unreliable character herself. We meet Annie, who is seriously overweight and struggles to interact with others, as she moves - alone - into a new neighbourhood. At first Annie seems to be a fairly ordinary, if rather sad, character. She is lonely, with no family, and appears to have a traumatic past; she is desperate to make friends with her new neighbours, but is completely misguided in how she goes about this, relying heavily on the clichéd and outdated advice of self-help books. She also develops an infatuation with the man next door, Neil - who has a beautiful young girlfriend - almost immediately. But very quickly, it becomes apparent that Annie is unbalanced and her account cannot be trusted. As her crush on Neil grows into an obsession, and she becomes convinced of a dangerous rivalry with his girlfriend Lucy, Annie's behaviour spirals into a series of increasingly bizarre incidents - all seen through the warped lens of her own disturbed mind.

There were points when I did wonder if the plot could have been more subtle. I think, for example, the story might have worked better if Ashworth had established Annie as an honest, trustworthy and likeable character and revealed her true nature at a slower pace; if she had played with the reader's perceptions more. Instead, the reader knows within the first couple of chapters that Annie is both disturbed and dishonest. But the method of delivery is effective, as the protagonist intermittently delves into scenes from her past that gradually allow her audience to piece together the reasons for her present situation. It must have taken tremendous effort to maintain the style throughout - relating everything in Annie's distinctive voice, so naive and out of touch with her surroundings yet so subtly menacing, while also clearly communicating the reality of each incident to the reader. There are shocking developments - the seedy secrets of Annie's past could easily seem bizarrely out of sync with her delusions about Neil and Lucy's relationship - but somehow, in context, these work, perhaps because for most of the book Ashworth manages to balance Annie's madness and her humanity with enviable skill.

While Annie can't exactly be called a sympathetic character - her deviance is hinted at too heavily from the very beginning - the power of Ashworth's writing lies in the way she's taken traits many lonely people will identify with and exaggerated them to a wince-inducing degree. The modification and embellishment of one's past during conversations; the disproportionate emphasis placed on small encounters with someone you find attractive; the over-enthusiastic celebration of new potential friendships; the descent from healthy eating, to microwave meals, to piles of snacks eaten in bed. While it's difficult to like Annie, it's equally impossible not to feel sorry for her and, at points, to feel like you're on her side. This is emphasised by the fact that there are many shades of grey in the earlier half of the novel - Annie is not 'bad' and the other characters 'good'. Lucy isn't likeable, and is unpleasant towards Annie from the beginning for no reason other than her weight and the fact that she doesn't immediately fit in - which of us that's ever felt 'different' can't identify with that? Sangita does seem two-faced, Raymond is horrible and Will is boring and suffocating. None of this excuses Annie's eventual actions or explains her distorted perspective, but it does help to portray her as a painfully human character.

A Kind of Intimacy is an ideal companion piece to one of my favourite books of the year - Ross Raisin's God's Own Country - and in many ways, Annie is the female equivalent of Raisin's Sam Marsdyke. Both books start out as a portrayal of a lonely, isolated young person with a murky past and a suggested history of violence; both see said character developing an obsessive and delusional infatuation with a neighbour; both build to a quite terrifying climax, and end (view spoiler). I'm certainly glad I read this after Ashworth's inferior sophomore novel, Cold Light - if I'd read A Kind of Intimacy first, my expectations would have been sky-high for any follow-up. This book has its flaws (it occasionally flounders slightly), but it's extraordinarily powerful and darkly funny throughout, and so much of the story has really stuck in my head since I finished it. A worthy addition to my collection of favourite unreliable narrators.(less)

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Jul 12, 2010 Jasmine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book is about a crazy person, and I don't mean a little bit of a crazy person a super crazy person. Say hello to Annie, weirdly my mother's name is also annie, perhaps that is not weird. Annie has a crazy father, and from what I can tell had an extremely loving husband up until she went and fucked that up too. No totally seriously her husband seems like a really great guy who is willing to put up with basically anything as long as he get to be with her. She is totally unappreciative of tha...more This book is about a crazy person, and I don't mean a little bit of a crazy person a super crazy person. Say hello to Annie, weirdly my mother's name is also annie, perhaps that is not weird. Annie has a crazy father, and from what I can tell had an extremely loving husband up until she went and fucked that up too. No totally seriously her husband seems like a really great guy who is willing to put up with basically anything as long as he get to be with her. She is totally unappreciative of that. Annie is socially, well inept would be the nice way to put it. Lets go with schizotypal perhaps. Certainly sociopathic.

Regardless lets talk about the book, or at least pretend to. Basically I read the summary of this book and decided certain events had occurred, then 2/3s of the way through the book was worried that such events actually hadn't occurred, reread the jacket seeing it said nothing of these events. But no worries all eventually everything I was expecting to happen in this book did and I enjoyed every moment of it.

The book is a bit of an experiment in character development, the Annie you meet in the first few pages is not the same Annie that you walk away from the book with. Part of the problem being a completely unreliable narration that forces you to question everything that has occurred in the entire book. It is very clear that Annie is telling the entire story after the fact and seeing how by the end you are forced to question everything that she says it is hard to know what to think about the entire book. There were moments when I just couldn't tell what was going on at all. But in the end I enjoyed it and it all turned out for the best.

Here is a toast to another great British attempt to humanize the criminal mind. Although a comparatively much more creepy one.

addendum:

I have decided that this review is complete crap and it isn't that I am trying to float it just that I think I completely missed some of the very important points of the book.

This book is about people I find generally disgusting, basically a morbidly obese person who thinks that is super sexy, or what she says is "some men like that". In her social ineptitude she fails to mention the men she knows that like that have creepy feeder fetishes(I mean these are basically as creepy if not worse than furry fetishes), I am not sure she is aware of this. This leads to part of the creepiness of the book. Several times Annie talks about how she is so good in social situations and explains how other events have lead to her talent. This talent manifests as her cutting herself on purpose and hiding in the kitchen during her party, and believing next door neighbors who are in happy relationships are completely in love with her. Social talents my ass.

Okay I don't know if I am done yet, but I feel much better about this review now. (less)

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Apr 27, 2011 jazz-ee2 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook

GreenMetropolis.com
Description:
'Annie moves into her new home bringing little else but her cat and a collection of cow-shaped milk jugs. She's hoping for a clean slate, but there's something familiar about her next door neighbour - she's convinced she's seen him somewhere before. Annie is morbidly obese, lonely and hopeful. She narrates her own increasingly bizarre attempts to ingratiate herself with her new neighbours, learn from past mistakes and achieve a 'certain kind of intimacy' with the b...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Francesca rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Psicopatici

Dunque, praticamente ci sta sta tipa grassoccia e assai sfigata che si trasferisce non si sa perchè non si sa per come in questo appartamento con il gatto, poraccia.

Appena arrivata comincia a farsi un sacco di pare pesissime sui nuovi vicini di casa, origlia, spia, facosevedegente, cose così che fanno tutti i nuovi vicini per far buona impressione suglia altri, insomma.
Tiene sta fissa di farsi amici, fare buona impressione, farsi una vita, ma non ce la può assolutamente fare perchè è solo una po...more

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May 10, 2011 Lolly LKH rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel brings to light the damage our own realities can wreak on innocent bystanders. Poor Neil, the object of Annie's demented love. Annie is an overweight mess of a woman that is descending into a bit of madness. Her obsession with her new neighbor Neil drives her to torment his young girlfriend Lucy, because she just knows Neil is in love with her and just needs help letting Lucy down. At first, Annie seems to be a sad woman coping with a broken marriage but slowly her creep factor rises...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Carys rated it 4 of 5 stars

I started reading the book on a Saturday morning and finished it by teatime: it was a book that I couldn’t put down. I watched 'Notes on a Scandal' recently and the comparison that Alison Flood makes between the two stories is apt, although I found 'A Kind of Intimacy' more terrifying, which probably had something to do with Annie’s size and age: twenty eight is very young to be so damaged and Annie’s obesity tends towards Stephen King's 'Misery' (Anne Wilkes), rather than the jolly Father Chris...more

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Aug 27, 2010 Eileen Granfors rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: highly-unusual, local-color, medical-issues, women

I love a book told by an unreliable, mentally ill narrator. If you do too, this is a chilling look at society's "difficult" personalities. "A Kind of Intimacy" may remind you of Stephen King's Annie in his book, "Misery."

Annie Fairhurst, a plus-size woman, relates the story of her new home in a new neighborhood, all the while providing clues as to why she moved from her last home. It isn't pretty, as she plays little tricks on the winsome girl next door. Her attempt at a house party is fraught w...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Devil rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very engrossing read and the narration in the first person is very easy to follow which makes it harder to let go of the book. It's not because you're really enjoying it though, but almost as though you are so uncomfortable with it, you want to get it over with asap.
Before I read this, I browsed through some reviews and got the impression that learning of Annie's past history would make her a more sympathetic character and that I would end up feeling sorry for her - Wrong! As it turned...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Karmen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: europa-editions, pbswap

Annie is a lost soul. Morbidly obese, she is looking to make a new life.

We soon find that she has killed her nearly newborn child and husband. During the tenure of her marriage she had answered ads from ABUNDANCE a magazine given to her by a childhood friend whom she was enamored of. Annie often met with men from the ads advertising for BIG women.

In her new home, she attempts to forge new relationships but gloms on Neil, her immediate neighbor. Neil, a man living with his much younger partner, L...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Cara Murphy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bought-new, general-fiction, reviewed

This book kept me up till the wee small hours as I just couldn't put it down until I had finished it! Jenn Ashworth lulls you into a false sense of security at the beginning, introducing us to Annie who has just moved into a new house and is getting to know her neighbours. Gradually you begin to realise that things aren't quite right but you can't put your finger on exactly why this is. At first you feel some sympathy or pity for Annie; she has obviously been through some kind of traumatic event...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, a-favorite-read

Annie Fairhurst, 27 and newly single has just relocated to a British suburb with her cat, Mr. Tips. Annie is an obese and socially awkward young woman, who actually seems content with her size and who she is. It is important to her to make a good impression with the new people she meets, so she has immersed herself in personal development books about socializing and making conversation. She's vague about her past, and when she does talk about it, you are never quite sure if she is telling the tr...more Annie Fairhurst, 27 and newly single has just relocated to a British suburb with her cat, Mr. Tips. Annie is an obese and socially awkward young woman, who actually seems content with her size and who she is. It is important to her to make a good impression with the new people she meets, so she has immersed herself in personal development books about socializing and making conversation. She's vague about her past, and when she does talk about it, you are never quite sure if she is telling the truth.

In her efforts to make friends and get to know her neighbors she decides to throw a housewarming party. She sends out 30 invitations, prepares a hedgehog centerpiece with pickled onions for eyes, and raisins for the irises, sets out her cow shaped milk pitcher, among other treats, and is ready for the party to begin. She thought the centerpiece would make for some good conversation. Although the party is a disaster in the eyes of those she was trying to impress, she thinks it went well. She even believes the friendliness of her next door neighbor Neil, is really a romantic crush on her. The fact that Neil has a cute, 19 year old live-in girlfriend named Lucy, is not even a factor in Annie's eyes, because she knows if Lucy were gone, they would be together.

"Sometimes I liked to imagine that Neil's bed was pushed up against the wall like mine, so near that I could hear his breathing. There was nothing inappropriate with my imaginings, far from it. Just the thought of hearing someone nearby helped me to sleep."

" The newspaper he gave her felt like a lover's token, a little indication of his concern for me. "

An unreliable narrator, as the story progresses, the reader gets some insight into Annie's past: her very sad childhood, her problematic marriage, and the risky behavior she has engaged in, all in attempts to find love, acceptance and companionship. It's clear she is delusional and pretty much the "sociopath next door". Each new chapter shows you just how twisted and laughable her logic is. Just when you think she's gotten herself into the worst mess possible, something new happens, and it isn't long before her past catches up to her.

Annie is a whacky gal, who I found endearing in a bizarre sort of way. At times I pitied her, and her desperate attempts for love and acceptance. The story is dark and addictive. An unforgettable birds-eye view of the dark side of a fractured mind. I LOVED this book, and it is without a doubt, my favorite book read in 2011.

(If you are serious about wanting to read this book, DO NOT read the Publisher's Weekly review of it -- it contains MAJOR SPOILERS).(less)

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Mar 05, 2013 Helen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Annie is morbidly obese, and lonely, but ever hopeful of becoming firm friends with her new neighbours, having just moved house when the book opens.

As the book progresses Annie narrates the intertwined stories of her present and her past.

We follow her attempts at befriending her new neighbours, which includes a plan to achieve a "certain kind of intimacy" with Neil, the man next door.

At the same time, layer by layer, detail by detail, we learn more about Annie's past, and whilst we may be horr...more

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May 11, 2012 Ellie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: brit, chick-lit, crime, contemporary, love-and-life, mystery, 2012

I wasn't sure of this book when I first started it but it actually turned out to be an interesting read, which I think really took on a pace more towards the end. Mainly a psychological drama, but also part crime (without court cases and gory details) novel, it's set in contemporary England in the town of Fleetwood. The main character is a female who is seeking attention and affection from men. She turns her attention to her neighbour who she believes feels the same about her. As the reader we s...more

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May 03, 2011 Cara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

I've had this book on my shelf for a while. It was gifted to me, so obviously recommended, but I have to admit the cover did put me off.

During the World Book Night coverage the Guardian had pulled together a list of twelve of the best new novelists, one of which was Jenn Ashworth, and A Kind of Intimacy was spoken of so highly that I moved back up the 'to be read' pile.

The Guardian succinctly described A Kind of Intimacy as: "laugh-out-loud funny and completely compelling. The protagonist Anni...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Nick Turner rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fun, life-is-stranger, present

Along with Mr Tips, her cat, and a collection of novelty mugs, suburban single white female Annie hopes to leave behind her troubled past by moving to a new house. Annie has some anger issues.

My hands started to hurt again and I looked at them, surprised at the grazes on my knuckles. I'd been hitting the wall above the pedal bin with my fists, over and over without realising it.

But what can one do if the neighbours are simply beastly?

'Have you seen the size of her?' said Lucy, and laughed again.

...more

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Sep 21, 2011 Tonya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-novels, favorites

Annie, as your narrator, takes you through her move to a new neighborhood and her quest to remake herself. She is obsessed with making things appear 'just so' and wants very badly to be friends with her neighbors. What could go wrong?

We take a trip down memory lane occasionally and get bits of Annie's life growing up but the most engrossing parts of the book are her inner monologues and her reworking of a conversation she has just had with someone. We see her mind at work, we wonder how someone...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Sophie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books

This was such an odd little book that I'm not even sure what rating to give it. As a novel, it's worthy of four stars, but to rate it "really liked it" is stretching things a bit. I was interested in the book, and found it absorbing, but I can't say that I liked and enjoyed reading it. It was too disturbing for that. To be inside the mind of such a damaged personality was disconcerting, even though I appreciated the technique the author showed throughout the narrative. The author puts the reader...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Carl Bromwich rated it 5 of 5 stars

This first novel by Jenn Ashworth is a classic dark psychological thriller that takes you into the mind of an obsessive lonely obese woman. Imagine Abigails Party crossed with Stephen Kings Misery.
It is a frightening account of Annie who moves into a new house, a new area with new neighbours’ her plan is to get to know them and leave her murky past behind; she has read all the self help literature, but the problem is Annie has a personality disorder and her delusions of love and romance lead to...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Vivienne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychological-thriller, reading-group-selection, comedy-drama

Unsettling is a good description of this novel. I was quite aware from its opening pages that Annie was going to prove an unreliable narrator - the warning signs were there.

I certainly did not find it 'laugh out loud funny' as the reviewer for 'The Guardian' did and maybe this is because of a certain empathy with Annie's situation of craving intimacy and not going about it in quite the right way.

It proved very popular with our reading group and provoked discussuion over a range of subjects. It w...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Haley Spangler rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book so so well written, it's like I had Ashworth's character Annie sitting right next to me as I read. Annie's voice came through the pages so loudly it's like a I was getting punched in the face (in a good way of course), she was completely believable and not overdone like I was afraid was going to happen. She progressed slowly throughout the book, becoming more and more crazy and even more self obsessed and indulgent. I couldn't put this book down, I read it in just under two days and th...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Luciabo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzo

Molto carino. Una lettura gradevolissima. Annie è una ragazza non solo obesa, insicura, reduce da fallimenti sentimentali pesanti, dipendente da improbabili manuali di autostima, è anche una persona molto disturbata.Con una volontà stupefacente di riprovare a recuperare a far girare la vita in modo più gradevole e soddisfacente per lei. Non mancano momenti divertenti e a tratti riesce pure a catturare la simpatia del lettore; ha infatti una capacità straordinaria di trasformarsi in vittima quand...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Federica79 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Il personaggio del vicino spione che vorrebbe vivere le vite degli altri è decisamente inquietante. Lo è ancora di più se si tratta di una donna. Annie si insinua nella tranquilla esistenza di una giovane coppia di "belli e innamorati": lei invece è obesa, sola e con un passato torbido alle spalle. Vorrebbe ricominciare da zero cambiando casa, ma una volta sistematasi, inizia ad escogitare piani diabolici per impossessarsi della felicità altrui. L'autrice svela gli aspetti più morbosi di Annie i...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Tom Middleton rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am a 32 year old straight male. Needless to say this book is not aimed at me, but oh my god I am glad I read it. It was amazing.
A couple of girls that I work with had read it and after hearing them talk about it I was intrigued (it is lovingly refered to in the office as the 'Fat Girl Book'. I was told it was dark, but just how dark amazed me. It drew me in and I could not put it down. It was brilliant. The insanity of the book had me gripped from the first page. We cannot stop talking about i...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Nikki rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

I feel like I read a totally different novel to other people, in the sense where I can't see any subtlety or indeed any novelty here. I feel like I've read the whole story before, partially because it's populated by stereotypes. Fat woman with tragic past has mental illness and struggles to integrate into society, quickly developing a one-sided "connection" and proceeding to act according to the rulebook for stalkers which must be out there somewhere. Reminded me of Before I Go To Sleep (S.J. Wa...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Ian rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-kindle, funny, modern-novel, psychiatry-madness, counties

This is the story of Annie, a morbidly obese woman who we meet moving into a new house in Fleetwood, Lancashire. She is clearly excited and looking forward to a new start in life after escaping from a previous unhappy relationship. Annie is the narrator and we almost immediately realise that she is suffering from mental health problems, as she comes to the instant delusion, after just one very brief meeting, that her next door neighbour Neil is secretly in love with her. She thus embarks on a ca...more

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May 01, 2011 rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: from-library, criminals-or-tremendous-creepers, 2011

A few weeks ago, after realizing that many of the books I read have the common thread of a plot I probably wouldn't want to talk about in mixed company, I added a "criminals or tremendous creepers" shelf tag. It features American Psycho, Ann Rule, necrophilia, Nazis, a disturbingly high number of pedophiles, and now, this book. A Kind of Intimacy certainly belongs in the category, but it makes me uncomfortable on a level quite different from the other books on the shelf.

Its protagonist, Annie F...more A few weeks ago, after realizing that many of the books I read have the common thread of a plot I probably wouldn't want to talk about in mixed company, I added a "criminals or tremendous creepers" shelf tag. It features American Psycho, Ann Rule, necrophilia, Nazis, a disturbingly high number of pedophiles, and now, this book. A Kind of Intimacy certainly belongs in the category, but it makes me uncomfortable on a level quite different from the other books on the shelf.

Its protagonist, Annie Fairhurst, is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Newly single and freshly moved into a new home, she convinces herself that her cute next door neighbor Neil is secretly in love with her and aching to break up with his beautiful young girlfriend, Lucy. She proceeds to read his every smile as full of desire, every refusal to look at her as nervousness or modesty rather than disinterest. His "reluctance" to break up with Lucy, she tells herself, proves that he's just a nice guy who "wants to do it right."

I don't know about you, but failure to interpret body language correctly ranks high on my scale of mutual discomfort. I can't stand to see a person forge ahead seductively when the other party is telling them no in myriad ways. And this is what Annie does. All of a sudden she's whipped her breasts out of her dress, thinking that Neil wants this to happen (!) and it's a squirmy trainwreck. But you're reading this wreck from her perspective, and you're seeing the way she rationalizes her behavior as the right thing to do in the moment, so there's some degree of sympathy for her too, even as she commits small acts of vandalism and is in such denial about them that she is genuinely surprised when accused.

Then there's the ending. The book, once something of a tragedy, makes good on its "dark comedy" description in its final chapters. The epilogue and the pages of action that precede it read like Ashworth realized she'd gone on a little long without bringing this whole thing around to catharsis and overshot the crazy by forty meters as a make-up. No, thank you. I'd probably love a good snowglobe as weapon scene or rage! mirror shattering at the end of another book, but Annie's sociopathic tendencies up until this point had been pathetic, not funny. I know, I know: books with plots need climaxes. This one's over the top.(less)

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Dec 03, 2010 Ann Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm in between a 3 and 4 star rating on this one. The book paints a very complete picture of a person who is totally out of touch with reality. As a study of madness (albeit fictional), I found it intriguing and interesting. You see how Annie's thoughts are deeply dysfunctional and inconsistent, in ways that parallel and resonate with the real-life thought processes of patients with paranoid/irrational ideas and patterns.

The book is also really funny in parts, which provides a nice balance for...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a fantastic novel, I'm sure this one will be up there in my Top Ten of the year.

Annie is such an intriguing character - and one of the most unreliable narrators I've ever come across. At times she comes across as an innocent, naive, misunderstood and quite loveable, it is only as the reader gets further into the story that the darkness descends and so the little flashes of Annie's interior character are exposed.

There are incidents that are so funny; Annie's house-warming party and the dinn...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Sibyl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although I was a bit slow to 'take' to this book, I ended up finding it gloriously noir and funny.
I think the author should be congratulated for creating a central female character who breaks pretty much every rule about what heroines should be. On the one hand Annie is a victim, the unhappy daughter of an abusive father, who then gets ill-treated by the first boy to be smitten by her abundant charms.
But Jenn Ashworth's skill lies in showing us how victims can turn into aggressors....

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