I've seen a lot of backlash about the fact that this book is, as it says on the cover 'a love story written in reverse', and debate about how well this does or doesn't work. Personally I didn't have a problem with it. In fact if it hadn't been presented in this manner, the whole story would've been completely unprintable due to how dull it would be.
I've given it three stars because as it went on the main two characters got gradually less unbearable (probably another very good reason why Hayes decided to present it in reverse order.)
It's very, VERY pretentious. I found myself rolling my eyes at this a number of times. It's so pretentious the narrator, who is clearly based closely on the author, is never named. The main character/narrator spends almost the entire book (apart from the last two chapters) complaining about how awful Theo, the boyfriend in the relationship the book is about, is, seemingly completely unaware that the whole book tells the reader how totally abhorrent she is. The first chapter has our narrator reading her ex-boyfriend's emails and discovering he's been on several dates since they broke up. You then go on to read that our dear narrator cheated on Theo with two different women while they were still together, but somehow this was all Theo's fault.
The narrator also lurches around the entire narrative berating everything and anyone as being beneath her; examples include: people are too happy at Christmas, English people are stupid, if you say you like The Smiths you're just a cliche of people in any rom-com ever made; people who have any sort of faith are 'fools'; at one point she even rants that she should never have been made to learn maths at school because she's too good for it and it's 'pointless' before going on to have some sort of tantrum at Theo because he's better at maths than she is. As you can imagine this got very old very quickly. I did however laugh out loud when she said about Theo's mother, with no hint of irony at all '... simultaneously believes that she is both oppressed by and better than everybody else'. She also spends most of the novel complaining about her own mental health issues, but as soon as Theo's own mental health issues are causing him difficulties, it's a problem for *her* and he's bringing her down, which I always thought was the number 1 thing. you were never meant to say or think about someone with depression. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the unsympathetic narrator/main character. I find them more interesting than the average Mary Sue, but this one was not done well. I know I'm *supposed* to come away thinking Nameless is better off without Theo, but honestly, Theo can do a lot better than Nameless.
I did however empathise with her in the opening chapters when she explains how she doesn't want children and the comments/borderline abuse a young woman will receive from 90% of people upon making this statement.
Overall, Hayes does too much telling and barely any showing, which is shocking from an author and a character who both claim to be 'passionate about writing fiction'.
I finished it. I would not recommend.
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