If I Can't Have You by Charlotte Levin

Author : Charlotte Levin
Title : If I Can't Have You
Published : 2020
Publisher : Mantle
Pages : 416
Genre : Psychological Thriller

     Samuel, the day we met I knew I’d finally found what I’ve been waiting for. You. Happiness, at last. Then you left me. And now I am alone. Everyone I love leaves in the end. But not this time. I’m not giving upon us. I’m not giving up on you. When you love someone, you never let them go. That’s why for me, this is just beginning.

     I suppose it's down to me that this book turned out to be not what I was expecting. I think with a title such as this you tend to have some preconceptions about just what you are getting your self into. So it was a genuine surprise to be proven wrong. And how often do we get the chance to say that anymore? I think Levin set aside the need for the big Hollywood blockbuster thriller and in stead went inserach of something a little more earth bound. A story that could happen to any of us and in doing so made something that is far more chilling and left me with questions about how thing we think of as being nothing can mean a whole deal to others. 

       Constance is someone who is struggling at life. It seems that no matter which way she turns it always endeds up being the wrong decision. And you have to feel for her she is a lost soul in the middle of a group of people who all seem to have it sorted out. But whilst it is perfectly easy to feel symopath for our hero we also have to accept there is a much darker side to her. Because what may have started out as geuine effection for one true love rapiddly decedes into somthing else. But even here it is hardly and entirley Constance fault. When people send mixed messages as to the true nature of their effections can our hero be complelet to blame. And for me that is part of what makes this book really addictive. 

     She manages to blur the lines between what is acceptable and not. As the narrative plays out we get drawn into Constance's frame of mind. we are lead to beliove thatthe choices she makes are atleast on some level eccetable. But it is only in stepping out of hermind do we see how far she has strayed from the path. There is for the most part a farmore realstic approach to the topic than most others achive. She also showed me the complixty of our own minds and how we all have an enat abilty to justify actions to ourselfs. Sadly we can make anything seem reasable given enough time. So what Levin gave me is a hero that was clearly in need of help. At the end of the day if someone had been nice enough to sit down with Constance and just talk the events of the book would have turned out some what diffrent . But then I suppose we would never have got the fasinating tale that we did.

     For me Levin created an all to pluysable series of events, and that is what makes this narrative crawl in under you skin. Even at its darest you still feel the need to help her hero. she is someone tha is a need of compassion and understanding. This is a book that shows how obsseions cand start and bloom into the darkness but it is also about honesty. And how if people stated there intetions at the start then just maybe things would not have gotten so out of hand in the first place.