Fiction Friday: This Close to Okay

Today's Fiction Friday is an early release and my Book of the Month pick from December. Since I hadn't put in my order until later in December, I didn't get it until the end of the month, by which time I was already in the middle of to two fiction reads and trying to finish those before the end of the year. But I got it read by January 3rd, so that is close enough to Dec. for me.

This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith has a lot of hype preceding its release in February. I chose it as my BOTM pick because it was an early release, and I was eager to be ahead of the reading game for once instead of my usual years behind the curve. And now I gotta say, I wish I'd picked a different book. 

Tallie Clark, a therapist still reeling from her recent divorce, stumbles upon a man about to throw himself off a bridge. Neither of them realize that in talking him back over the railing, they would become entangled in each other's pain. Healing is hard. Everyone has secrets. And mental heath is a fragile faculty.

First off, I love the way the author portrays depression, PTSD, dissociation, and many other mental health struggles. She gives these conditions the gravity and grit they deserve. I love how she describes a particular episode one character experiences as feeling physically hot and cold at the same time. And another where everything becomes visually fuzzy, and the things Emmet notices seem arbitrary and insignificant. These, and many more precise and intimate descriptions of what some individuals experience while living with these conditions show the author really cares about authentically representing people who struggle with these issues. She portrays nuances in both episodes the characters experience and how entangled memories can become with reality. Then also realistically discusses how a person can feel horrible one moment but content or calm the next. There was much that I related to with these characters.

Another aspect I liked was how the author pulled me into the story immediately. I cared instantly about both principal characters, despite knowing next to nothing about them. I emotionally invested in Emmet, the male MC, right off the bat. Maybe because he was the one suffering from crippling depression and I have been there. But it was also because he was a genuinely intriguing character. Now Tallie, I had a harder time deeply connecting with. There is nothing in the writing that leads you to believe she views herself as superior, yet I couldn't shake that underlying feeling. She's flawed, yes. Makes a few poor choices, yep. But she is at her core a good person, a kind and empathetic soul. So I really can't tell if the author wrote her to come off with a hint of that vibe, or if I'm projecting that onto her. It didn't make me care less for her story, I just kept feeling like she wasn't someone I would be close friends with, even though we have a lot of similarities.

Perhaps the vibe came from other aspects of the writing style. Advertised as Literary Fiction, this is a genre I am familiar with, but no expert in. I found myself conflicted about the style and prose. Some scenes, settings, dialogue, and lines were smooth and balmy, a pleasure to read. Such as this line, which  made me smile and reread several times just enjoying the imagery:

         "The water steamed up like a jungle, rained him clean."

What a lovely way to describe the common act of taking a shower. 

Yet there were many instances where I had to pull out of the story and go look up the definition of some obscure word. They are impressive words, but they are powerless if they are so unusual that even avid readers have never run across them. Words such as crepuscular (located the third sentence in, and means resembling twilight), zaftig (full-figured or plump), and vulpine (related to a fox or foxes). The well written, character-driven plot is intelligent, both intellectually and emotionally. But it feels condescending to have this kind of recondite locution just randomly sprinkled into an otherwise average narrative, vocabulary wise. (Annoying, isn't it? Those two were my words, not ones from the book, chosen specifically to make a point. They just mean obscure and phrasing, so you don't have to go look them up.) It would have made more sense to me if they appeared only in the dialogue, presented simply as how a character speaks and everybody else gives them odd looks. At least that way, we might have gotten an idea of their meaning when a character has to explain them.

That goes hand in hand with another gripe of mine. If you're going to use such amazing words, don't ruin it by sprinkling in the F-bomb just as randomly. I know a lot of people curse, and I am in the minority that chooses not to. But it felt like it really cheapened the reading experience. I get that it might be a way of expressing an emotion. Fine. Then, like any other literary tool, use it with skill. Make it count. I don't form a lower opinion of a book that has a few instances of profanity where they make sense or really make a point, even if I personally would have expressed it differently. But when a character knows multiple French phrases, can rattle off the full names of artwork and the artists all in different languages, and the obscure words mentioned above occur only in that characters point of view narrative, you've lost my loyalty as a reader when their go-to word is that particular expletive. Yes, I'm aware highly intelligent people swear too. The amount that occurred in this story, combined with the other vocabulary elements, distanced me from the story, and I think is probably why I couldn't really connect with Tallie's character.

Okay, done. Rant is over.

There was some sexual material also that I skimmed over, and since I lost nothing from the story by doing that, they really weren't necessary, were they? In fact, I think the story would have been more powerful without it.

With all that being said, I didn't hate the book. I would not recommend this book to anyone sensitive to suicide or PTSD triggers. 

Despite some really beautiful writing, dialogue, and authentic representation of mental health struggles, I'm going to have to rate this book a 2 out of 5 stars, and give it an NR warning. Not recommended for sensitive readers, younger readers, nor to those who do not tolerate profanity or sexual content.