A Very Good Person, Kirsten King

A Very Good Person by Kirsten King is one of those books that makes you wonder, within the first few pages, what exactly you are reading — a psychological thriller, a dark comedy, or an extended stay inside the mind of someone you would never want to be left alone with.

The novel sits somewhere between psychological thriller and black comedy, while its protagonist, Lillian, our spectacularly unreliable narrator, is… difficult to describe in just a few words.

She is narcissistic, sociopathic, utterly convinced that she is an exceptionally good person both personally and professionally, and equally convinced that she is always the victim of some vast cosmic injustice. She is impulsive, vindictive, chaotic, razor-sharp, and has a remarkable talent for reshaping reality until it fits her own version of events. Trying to step away from Lillian’s psychological profile and focus on the plot is surprisingly difficult. Lillian is the plot.

At the center of this already absurd story is her relationship with Henry — casual, at least according to him, though certainly not according to her. Lillian has grand plans for their future together. Then comes the surprise. Henry leaves her. So Lillian, naturally, decides to get revenge by putting a curse on him. Except poor Henry is soon found dead. And Lillian becomes the prime suspect.

The narrative is both hilarious and deeply unsettling. King constantly keeps the reader in that uncomfortable position of laughing at Lillian one moment, only to wonder the next whether perhaps we should actually be afraid of her.

Lillian inspires conflicting emotions. You can be disgusted by her and still feel an unexpected degree of sympathy. She is a cynic, but her brutally sharp observations about relationships, men, emotional dishonesty, and the artificiality of human connections often make her behavior disturbingly understandable.

Especially her desire to be loved. The most dangerous thing about Lillian is that the longer you spend inside her head, the more often you begin to understand her logic — even while knowing that it has very little to do with objective reality.

If you dare to read A Very Good Person, Lillian will be delighted to invite you inside her mind. The question is whether you will manage to leave it with the same opinion of her or of yourself. This is one of those novels that is almost impossible to put down. It moves quickly, is packed with events – both real and imagined – and managed to surprise me far more than I expected.

I am usually difficult to convince by grand marketing claims about “the most anticipated debut of the year” and similar promises, but Kirsten King has set the bar remarkably high with her first novel. I am already curious to see what she does next.

BOOKLOVERS Rating: 4/5