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Crazy Love You

Review

Crazy Love You

There are some people in life who you simply cannot live without. They support you, understand who you are and where you came from, and complete you in every way. There are also deep relationships that, for inexplicable reasons, fall apart. In some cases, you simply go along your own path and eventually lose all touch. Then there are people like Priss. She seems to have always been with Ian. They used to live in the sun together with everything bright, but now they share a darkness that appears to be impenetrable by any light.

CRAZY LOVE YOU is a deeply layered and finely textured novel about a special relationship that has taken a dark turn. It is a novel of obsession, unrequited love, loneliness and the rage that comes from not fitting in. Ever since Ian was a young boy, struggling with weight issues and being called “fatboy,” he has had one person to lean on: Priss. She understood and protected him. She lived somewhere in the woods with her mother behind Ian's upstate New York home in a town called The Hollows.

"CRAZY LOVE YOU is a deeply layered and finely textured novel about a special relationship that has taken a dark turn. It is a novel of obsession, unrequited love, loneliness and the rage that comes from not fitting in."

The Hollows at times was a mysterious place where you could swear you hear whispers speaking directly to you. It is a depressed town that tends to trap its inhabitants to a life of mediocrity and worse. Ian vows to escape The Hollows, especially after the string of suspicious incidents that have plagued his youth. It seems that anyone who crosses him, whether a school bully or an overbearing teacher, pays a price. In these cases, both a house and a classroom are set on fire. Was it Priss acting out in a fit of revenge where Ian couldn't, or is something else going on?

Ian reimagines himself as a young man. He eventually leaves The Hollows to attend an art school as he pursues his dream of creating graphic novels. He leaves behind his home, a mother locked away in a mental institution for killing his young sister in a fit of dementia, and a father with whom he never really connected. The only thing he can't leave behind is Priss, who comes with him to New York City.

Ian is battling addiction and alcoholism. He is now the creator of a successful graphic novel series entitled Fatboy and Priss that is more than a bit autobiographical. Everything changes when he meets Megan, who is able to connect with Ian on a normal, non-sociopathic level. It is probably the first healthy relationship he has ever had. Of course, Priss won't be pushed away so easily, and Megan will soon realize that Ian's childhood friend is a force to be reckoned with and a threat to her life.

When reading CRAZY LOVE YOU, it is easy to accept early on that Priss does not exist and is merely a hidden part of Ian's subconscious mind. Or is she? Lisa Unger does a masterful job of not answering that question and creating a constant sense of dread and expectation as readers will cringe with each passing page while watching the relationship between Ian and Priss become more and more dangerous. This is an exciting novel that you won't be able to put down or soon forget.

Reviewed by Ray Palen on February 12, 2015

Crazy Love You
by Lisa Unger