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WORK TITLE: Mad: A Novel
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: c. 1986
WEBSITE:
CITY: London, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2150090/chloe-esposito * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/meet-chloe-esposito-good-girl-behind-summers-raciest-read/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017010808
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PR6105.S556
Personal name heading:
Esposito, Chloé J.
Found in: Mad, 2017: ECIP t.p. (Chloé J. Esposito)
The Hollywood Reporter.com, Feb. 24, 2017: (the debut novel
from British writer Chloe Esposito)
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PERSONAL
Born c. 1986; married; children: daughter.
EDUCATION:University of Oxford, B.A., M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. Also worked as senior management consultant, English teacher, and fashion journalist
WRITINGS
Mad and its sequels have been optioned for film by Universal and Michael de Luca.
SIDELIGHTS
Chloe Esposito’s first novel is Mad, the first in a series of novels featuring a female (and feminist) anti-hero. “Mad tells the story of Alvina Knightly, a train-wreck and evil identical twin,” Esposito declared in Writing.ie. “It reveals the lengths she will go to, to not only steal her sister’s perfect life, but to go on living it. Expect sex, lies, twists and murder from a brand new kind of anti-heroine. She is uncensored, unhinged and unforgettable.” “Bad twin Alvina, we discover, is living in a grotty flat in Archway, north London,” reported Alison Flood in the London Guardian, “avoiding her flatmates, loathing her job, and making full use of Tinder. Good twin Beth, meanwhile, leads a charmed, lavish life in Sicily with the man Alvina loves and the child she believes should have been hers.” Learning of Alvie’s situation, Beth offers her the chance to escape to Sicily—and then presses her to change places for a few hours. “The evening ends with Beth dead in a pool,” said Booklist reviewer Erin Holt, “leaving everyone under the impression that Alvie is Beth.” “Finally, Alvina has what she’s always wanted: a chance to live Beth’s life,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor. “But soon, people begin to catch on that Alvina isn’t really her twin.” Wearing Beth’s identity, Alvie begins a rampage of sex and violence. “The plot owes a debt (freely acknowledged) to the global phenomenon that was Gone Girl,” Stanford said in the London Telegraph. “Mad … is not so much the new Gone Girl, but ‘Gone Girl plus.’”
In fact, Esposito represents her anti-heroine to be as much a victim as a perpetrator. “Although Alvie is on this crazy ride,” said Simone Gigg on the Girly Book Club website, “it is hard not to like her and feel sorry for her due to the way she has been treated in the past.” In designing the characters, “I started with Shakespeare’s brilliant tragedy, Othello, and the theme of jealousy.. What, I wondered, would make me the most jealous ever? For Othello, it was his wife’s supposed infidelity with Cassio,” Esposito continued in Writing.ie. “For me, it would be having an identical twin who was more successful.” “For me,” Esposito told Peter Stanford in the London Telegraph, “Mad is a feminist novel for this generation. I know that the really strict, strident feminists will read it and think Alvie’s a bad feminist because she is using her sexuality to manipulate men. But it is all about female empowerment. She is the one driving the sports car in the high-speed chase. She is the one with the gun, shooting the bad boys. She is calling the one in control, doing what men have done for centuries. That, for me, is equality.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2017, Erin Holt, review of Mad, p. 21.
Guardian (London, England), July 11, 2017, Alison Flood, review of Mad.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of Mad.
Telegraph (London, England), May 29, 2017, Peter Stanford, “Meet Chloe Esposito: The ‘Good Girl’ behind This Summer’s Raciest Read.”
ONLINE
Girly Book Club, https://girlybookclub.com/ (April 11, 2018), Simone Gigg, review of Mad.
Margate Bookie, https://margatebookie.com/ (April 11, 2018), author profile.
Penguin Website, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ (April 11, 2018), author profile.
Writing.ie, https://www.writing.ie/ (July 3, 2017, Chloe Esposito, “Introducing Alvina Knightly: One Mad, Bad B*itch.”
Chloé Esposito is the author of the Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know trilogy. She grew up in Cheltenham and now lives in London with her husband and daughter. She has a BA and MA in English from Oxford University, and has been a senior management consultant, an English teacher at two of the UK’s top private schools, and a fashion stylist at Condé Nast. A graduate of the Faber Academy, Mad is her first novel.
Meet Chloe Esposito: the 'good girl' behind this summer's raciest read
Author Chloe Esposito discusses her debut novel, set to be the summer's essential beach read
Author Chloe Esposito discusses her debut novel, set to be the summer's essential beach read Credit: Rii Schroer
Peter Stanford
29 May 2017 • 7:00am
The relationship between identical twins has long fascinated popular culture, from Sebastian and Viola in Twelfth Night to Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter. But currently getting publishers – as well as Hollywood – over-heated is Beth and Alvina Knightly, the lookalike twin sisters in Mad, Chloé Esposito’s debut novel. The book is a portrait of just how low that relationship between two people with the same face and genome can sink.
“There’s something you should know before we go any further,” announces self-styled bad-girl Alvie on the opening page of a book hotly tipped as the must-have beach read for millennials this summer, already sold in translation to 25 countries, and in pre-production by the film studio that made 50 Shades of Grey. “My heart is in the wrong place… on the right. My sister’s heart is in the right place. Elizabeth is perfect through and through.”
When 31-year-old former English teacher Chloé Esposito read that passage to an audience of literary agents at the end of her stint at the Faber Academy – sometimes referred to as the book world’s equivalent of The X Factor, on account of its track record in turning wannabe scribblers into bestsellers – she ended up with 21 offering to represent her.
Mad has been tipped as the next Gone Girl
Mad has been tipped as the next Gone Girl
“But doesn’t everyone find identical twins fascinating?” asks Esposito when I congratulate her on her big break over coffee near the north London home that the Oxford graduate shares with her Italian husband, Paolo, and their four-year-old daughter. (She wrote the novel after giving up teaching to bring her up.)
“You always wonder what it must be like having another you. Imagine if you had a doppelganger but their life was completely different. What potential for jealousy and conflict.”
Esposito is effortlessly polite, but surprisingly at ease after being suddenly thrust into the spotlight by a book-and-film deal with several noughts. She is clearly no ingénue. Like Alvina, as pictured on the book’s jacket, and soon to be blown up on billboards and the sides of buses, her blonde hair is tucked coquettishly behind one ear. Which twin, I can’t help wondering, is she going to be?
"I thought, 'what would make me the most insanely jealous ever? What about if I had an identical twin sister, who is more successful than me, more beautiful than me, richer than me, married to the man I was in love with?'"
She grew up in Cheltenham, the only child of a French mother and a father whose work at GCHQ must never be mentioned. “I always had my nose stuck in a book,” she recalls, “because I didn’t have anyone to play with at home. But all my friends had brothers and sisters, so I saw the relationship between sisters, and it was often nasty, violent and toxic.”
It’s a list that doesn’t even begin to describe the hellish relationship she charts between blessed Beth and off-the-rails Alvie. “I thought,” she says, talking me through the creative process, “what would make me the most insanely jealous ever? What about if I had an identical twin sister, who is more successful than me, more beautiful than me, richer than me, married to the man I was in love with.”
And that is the premise of the novel, set at Beth’s luxury villa on Sicily, complete with her good-looking husband, Ambrogio, her infant son, and her walk-in-wardrobe stuffed with designer labels. Alvie visits and seizes her chance in the pages of this racey, pacey Mafia-infused thriller to become her sister for a week. “Unity of time, place and action,” she confirms, quoting a mantra from her academy training.
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The plot owes a debt (freely acknowledged) to the global phenomenon that was Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s 2012 page-turner, subsequently made into a film with Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne, the woman who outsmarts men at their own game. “I loved her,” Esposito enthuses, before adding with a flash of steel, “but she’s so humourless. She never cracks a smile.”
Mad, therefore, is not so much the new Gone Girl, but “Gone Girl plus”. (There are two more volumes in the offing to follow Mad, entitled Bad and Dangerous to Know.) Esposito has added a dollop of Bridget Jones to the mix: “It is kind of a black comedy – Bridget gone bad, 20 years on. She never had Tinder, for example.”
Esposito describes the novel as a black comedy, as "Bridget gone bad"
Esposito describes the novel as a black comedy, as "Bridget gone bad" Credit: Everett Collection / Rex Features
Now we are getting on to another striking aspect of Mad – the sex. Once in Sicily, Alvie has little need for any online dating app as she works her way, hectically and graphically, through almost every man in her sister’s circle, including her oh-so-gorgeous brother-in-law who turns out to be not oh-so-desirable in bed.
“I do hope I win the [Literary Review’s famed annual] Bad Sex Prize,” giggles Esposito. “One scene is meant to be really bad sex.”
Turning the tables on men in the bedroom by describing in centimetre-perfect detail what women really want might cause others to blush, but not this unapologetic author. “If it were a man sexually objectifying women in the way Alvina does men, for example, you wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. It is just what guys do.”
And has her husband read her novel? “He might wait for the movie…” she answers with a grin. “He’s in finance, and he hasn’t read a novel in the 11 years since I met him.”
Esposito has been inspired by outspoken feminists such as comedian Amy Schumer
Esposito has been inspired by outspoken feminists such as comedian Amy Schumer Credit: Kevin Mazur
Not content merely to entertain, Esposito is keen to enter the gender war. “We forgave [Donald] Trump for grabbing women by the p----. He was elected President of America with women’s votes. Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton had been going around grabbing guys by their crotches? It is gloves-off time for women.”
She is hearing the same rallying cry, she says, in the work of a younger generation of women comedians currently capturing the zeitgeist – the likes of American stand-up Amy Schumer and Britain’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who recently cracked a joke about wet dreams as she collected her Bafta for Fleabag. “It’s that way of over-sharing they have, and talking about what women really think in their darkest hours. Alvie has a lot of dark hours.”
How does that fit with mainstream feminism, though? “For me, Mad is a feminist novel for this generation. I know that the really strict, strident feminists will read it and think Alvie’s a bad feminist because she is using her sexuality to manipulate men. But it is all about female empowerment. She is the one driving the sports car in the high-speed chase. She is the one with the gun, shooting the bad boys. She is calling the one in control, doing what men have done for centuries. That, for me, is equality.”
“Everyone has a shadow side, their subconscious desires, but this is, I promise you, just me letting my imagination run wild. In real life, I’m a good girl. Mad is complete escapism.”
“Everyone has a shadow side, their subconscious desires, but this is, I promise you, just me letting my imagination run wild. In real life, I’m a good girl. Mad is complete escapism.” Credit: Rii Schroer
One striking feature of Alvie, as she plays cuckoo in Beth’s nest, is her utter disinterest in her sister’s infant son. “Alvie only wants the baby because it is Beth’s. He is an accessory,” Esposito agrees. “She has no maternal love.”
It’s a hard thing for one woman to say about another, even if she is character in a book. “But I wanted to break the taboo,” Esposito replies fiercely. “I’m a mother. I’m absolutely obsessed with my daughter, but this is a story. And there are women out there who regret having children but don’t feel able to speak out. They suffer in silence.”
Could Kristen Stewart be the ideal choice to play Alvie?
Could Kristen Stewart be the ideal choice to play Alvie? Credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images
She resolutely refuses to be tempted into picking suitable actresses for the part of Alvie in the forthcoming film, though her eyes do light up a little when I float the name of Kristen Stewart. Throughout, she has been talking about Alvie as if she is a friend, someone she knows. Some readers will inevitably wonder, with such a strongly-drawn character, if Esposito isn’t also sharing part of herself. She shakes her head vigorously.
“Everyone has a shadow side, their subconscious desires, but this is, I promise you, just me letting my imagination run wild. In real life, I’m a good girl. Mad is complete escapism.”
Introducing Alvina Knightly: One Mad, Bad B*itch by Chloé Esposito
w-ie-small
Chloé Esposito © 3 July 2017.
Posted in the Magazine ( · Crime · Interviews · Women's Fiction ).
My debut novel, Mad, has been described as “this summer’s raciest read” and ‘Gone Girl plus” by The Daily Telegraph. It is a sexy thriller with a darkly comic voice set in London and Sicily over one blood-soaked week in the dead of summer. Mad tells the story of Alvina Knightly, a train-wreck and evil identical twin. It reveals the lengths she will go to, to not only steal her sister’s perfect life, but to go on living it. Expect sex, lies, twists and murder from a brand new kind of anti-heroine. She is uncensored, unhinged and unforgettable.
The inspirations for Mad were diverse and included novels and plays.
I started with Shakespeare’s brilliant tragedy, Othello, and the theme of jealousy. What, I wondered, would make me the most jealous ever? For Othello, it was his wife’s supposed infidelity with Cassio. For me, it would be having an identical twin, who was more successful than me, more beautiful than me, richer than me and married to the guy that I was in love with. The guy that I had slept with first! That would really p*ss me off.
I have always found the villains in literature to be the most fascinating characters. What motivates them? How can they live with themselves? And what the hell goes through their minds when they are lying, manipulating or killing? I stole the character of Iago from Othello, too. He is the unforgettable, Machiavellian villain responsible for the pile of dead bodies at the end of the play. What, I wondered, would Iago be like as a Millennial woman living in London in 2017? Violent, crude and materialistic, someone who would literally kill for shoes: I called my badass new anti-heroine, Alvina Knightly, and her identical twin sister, Beth.
I turned to Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth for inspiration for the ultimate wicked woman. Macbeth’s über-ambitious wife says she would rather kill her own baby than give up on her plan for power and wealth. Maternal or traditionally feminine she most certainly is not. I love how Shakespeare broke that taboo all the way back in 1606 and yet it is still controversial today. I enjoyed smashing the conventions about femininity and turning gender stereotypes on their heads. In Mad, Alvie is the one doing all of the things that we are used to seeing the bad boys doing: driving the car in the high-speed chase, pulling the trigger on the gun or sexually objectifying men and having lots of crazy hot sex. And boy, does she enjoy the ride!
For something a little more light-hearted, I looked at the famous twin swap in the comedy, Twelfth Night. In this play, Sebastian and Viola swap places when they are marooned on the island of Illyria. Viola transforms into the boy servant, Cesario, and disguises her identity well enough to fool almost everyone. Shakespeare, being the genius that he was, managed to pull off the swap with twins of different genders. I played it safe and made my identical twins both girls.
In terms of modern fiction, I was inspired by the shocking 1930’s novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. The novel was so controversial when it came out, that it was banned in some states in America. (I’d love it if Mad was banned somewhere, but so far, no such luck.) Cain combines sex and violence to create a shocking and erotically charged drama with more twists and bite than an anaconda. I loved how fast paced and outrageous it was and wanted to capture some of it’s dark magic. In some ways, Alvina Knightly is a modern, more female, more British version of Frank Chambers, and the male characters in my novel, are different versions of the hyper-sexualised Cora.
I also loved Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley and her sociopathic anti-hero, Tom. Highsmith succeeded in getting readers to sympathise with and root for this cold-blooded killer. I defy anyone to read the Ripley novels and not want Tom to get away with his crimes. In Alvina Knightly, I have created a character who is as fashion conscious as Tom Ripley, as obsessed with the high-life, designer clothes and Italian sun. But Tom was rather morbid and serious. He very rarely cracked a smile. I wanted Alvie to be funny and dangerous, so I added an element of black comedy to the novel. I would describe Alvina as Bridget Jones gone bad. She’s a bit like an LOL Amy Dunne.
My journey to publication was both whirlwind and long. As I child, I always had my nose in a book and dreamed of becoming Enid Blyton. My favourite subjects at school were English and theatre studies, and I went to Oxford to complete a BA and MA in English language and literature. I always wanted to be a novelist, but didn’t have the confidence to write a whole book. So, I became a fashion journalist, an English teacher and then a management consultant. I would scribble away in my spare time, locked away in the spare bedroom like it was some kind of dirty secret. Until, one day, when I turned thirty, I suddenly became aware of my own mortality. Holy sh*t, I am going to die! I have to actually give it a try. I followed my dreams and my life-long passion and applied for the wonderful Writing a Novel course at the Faber Academy. I absolutely loved it and wrote most of Mad on the course. At the end of the six-month academy, Faber published an anthology of all the students’ work and we all read an extract at a (terrifying!) agents’ day. I was really lucky, I had 21 agents offering to represent me and, after interviewing a few of my favourites, I decide to sign with the legendary Simon Trewin at WME. He sold my novel in 25 countries, including to Penguin Random House in the US and UK. My agent at WME in LA also sold the movie rights to Universal Studios. Mike De Luca, the producer of Fifty Shades of Grey, is producing the film. I still think I’m dreaming and do have to pinch myself when I think about it…
(c) Chloé Esposito
About Mad:
Mad makes the utterly outrageous a glittering, sun-soaked reality – get set for the wildest ride of your life . . .
Alvina Knightly: Uncensored. Unhinged. Unforgettable.
‘There’s something you should know before we go any further: my heart is in the wrong place. Now don’t say I didn’t warn you . . .’
Perhaps that’s why nothing in Alvie’s life has ever gone right? Until now.
She can finally abandon her credit card debt – and her fruitless three-way relationship with Tinder and Twitter – when fate gives her the chance to steal her identical twin’s perfect life.
It’s just a shame Beth had to die to make Alvie’s dreams come true.
So begin seven days of sex, violence and unapologetic selfies – one wild week that sees Alvie break every rule in the book. She never did have much respect for boundaries.
It might be madness, but rules are meant to be broken. Right?
Mad is the first in the sexy, shocking and compulsively readable Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know trilogy.
Chloé Esposito grew up in Cheltenham and now lives in London with her husband and daughter. She has a BA and MA in English from The University of Oxford and has worked as a senior management consultant, an English teacher, and a fashion journalist. Chloe Esposito is a graduate of the Faber Academy, and Mad is her first novel.
Mad is the first book in the Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know trilogy. It introduces an unhinged and unforgettable new anti-heroine. Love to hate her or hate to love her, Alvina Knightly is an unstoppable, single-minded and badass killer, who leaves actual explosions in her wake. She is a completely uncensored female voice, an American Psycho for the Gone Girl generation. She will literally kill for shoes.
The Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know trilogy has sold in 25 territories to date and has been optioned for a film deal with Universal and Michael de Luca, producer of Fifty Shades of Grey and The Social Network.
Mad
Erin Holt
Booklist. 113.18 (May 15, 2017): p21.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* Mad. By Chloe Esposito. June 2017.336p. Dutton, $16 (9781101985991); e-book, I $12.99 (9781101986011).
Alvina Knightly has lost her job and her apartment in London on the same day. Her identical twin sister, Beth, has been begging her to visit her in Sicily, so with nothing holding her back, Alvie goes. Armed with her dildo-which almost gets confiscated at airport security-Alvie boards the plane, arrives, and is picked up by Beth's hot husband. It turns out that Beth has an ulterior motive, wanting to swap places with Alvie for one night. However, the evening ends with Beth dead in a pool, leaving everyone under the impression that Alvie is Beth. Alvie embraces her new life and all the wealth and glamour that come with it-including Mafia connections, affairs, and more. Esposito comes on the scene at breakneck speed in this debut, combining sex, drugs, and a bloodlust that is never satisfied. Alvina is a character that readers won't soon forget-funny, fierce, and fabulous. The sex is hot and the murders are intense, as Alvina learns that killing is what she was born to do. This is first in a projected trilogy, and readers will clamor for the next two books faster than you can pull the trigger on a gun.--Erin Holt
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Holt, Erin. "Mad." Booklist, 15 May 2017, p. 21. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A496084756/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=61c623cd. Accessed 26 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A496084756
Esposito , Chloe: MAD
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Esposito , Chloe MAD Dutton (Adult Fiction) $26.00 6, 13 ISBN: 978-1-101-98599-1
A woman assumes her twin's identity and goes on a murderous rampage in this debut novel.Alvina Knightly is broke, friendless, and unhappy. Her identical twin sister, however, has it all: a gorgeous husband, an adorable baby boy, and a beautiful villa in Sicily. When Beth invites her to visit on the same day that Alvina is fired and kicked out of her apartment, Alvina has almost no choice but to go. Soon she's in Sicily, inwardly seething that Beth is living a glamorous life while hers is depressing. Alvina quickly discovers that Beth didn't invite her just so they could catch up; she wants Alvina to switch places with her for a few hours, but she won't explain why. Alvina goes along with the plan, but when Beth comes home that night they get into an argument. Beth ends up hitting her head and falling into the pool, where Alvina lets her drown. Finally, Alvina has what she's always wanted: a chance to live Beth's life. But soon, people begin to catch on that Alvina isn't really her twin. Desperate to keep the life she thinks she deserves, Alvina kills anyone who threatens to reveal her identity. There's something to be said for unlikable heroines, but Alvina is so unlikable that she's nearly unreadable. Esposito's tone is tricky to pin down: is Alvina's gory rampage supposed to be funny, horrific, or both? Some may find a thrill in reading about a woman who truly does whatever she wants with no regard for others, but Alvina's callous thoughts and constant complaints about her twin sister are likely to put off most readers. A bloody, gruesome slog.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Esposito , Chloe: MAD." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668757/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9d656031. Accessed 26 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668757
Mad by Chloé Esposito review – murder most long-winded
An evil twin assumes her sister’s perfect life in this much hyped debut thriller – if only she wouldn’t talk so much
Alison Flood
Alison Flood
Tue 11 Jul 2017 02.30 EDT
Last modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018 19.50 EDT
Sicily is the setting for first-time author Chloé Esposito’s story of ‘sex, murder and run-ins with the mafia’
Sicily is the setting for first-time author Chloé Esposito’s story of ‘sex, murder and run-ins with the mafia’. Photograph: Alamy
Last year’s London book fair was set alight by first-time author Chloé Esposito, a former management consultant who had won book contracts worth more than £2m for her trilogy of thrillers Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know. The first in the series, Mad, is just out, and introduces us to life from the perspective of identical twin Alvina Knightly.
Esposito’s opening is a cracker, and it’s easy to see why it had international publishers lining up to acquire her debut, as well as a film deal with Universal. “There’s something you should know before we go any further: my heart is in the wrong place,” says Alvina. “Seven billion people on this planet have their hearts on the left. Mine’s on the right. You don’t think that’s a sign?”
So what next? Bad twin Alvina, we discover, is living in a grotty flat in Archway, north London, avoiding her flatmates, loathing her job, and making full use of Tinder. Good twin Beth, meanwhile, leads a charmed, lavish life in Sicily with the man Alvina loves and the child she believes should have been hers. When Beth invites Alvina to stay she’s broke, fired and about to be homeless. Alvina jumps at the chance of a holiday in the sun, and when after various shenanigans the opportunity presents itself to assume her perfect life, Alvina does so. This marks the start of seven days of subterfuge, sex, murder and run-ins with the mafia, as Alvina discovers she’s really rather partial to life as a femme fatale.
There’s a good read here, but it’s lost in an excess of similes and oversharing
Its Sicilian setting, its sexy anti-heroine – “Uncensored. Unhinged. Unforgettable”, as Esposito’s publisher has it – are emblazoned on Mad’s cover, positioning it as the latest sizzlingly glamorous, unapologetically trashy summer read. There’s not much I enjoy more than a sizzlingly glamorous, unapologetically trashy thriller, and I wanted to love this one, I really did. It started out so well. Alvina’s voice was funny and irreverent – “a great artist trapped inside the body of a classified advertising sales representative” who regrets borrowing money from a colleague to get a vajazzle (“in hindsight it wasn’t that urgent”).
Esposito splices the present-day action with Alvina’s reminiscences about her miserable childhood in the shadow of Beth. But notwithstanding her tortured backstory, the initial charm of Alvina’s voice starts to pall, and despite the heat of the action our narrator’s need to recount in minute detail every last thing she sees, thinks and does makes it feel a little like wading through treacle.
There’s a good read here, but it’s lost in an excess of similes and oversharing. It’s hard not to warm to the ridiculousness of a murderess who finds herself distracted mid-corpse disposal by the sexiness of her co-conspirator, and who pokes fun at the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey with comments such as “at least my inner goddess is dead; she was really starting to piss me off”. But it’s also hard not to want to shout “shut up” at her as she rabbits endlessly on. “I’ve never been to the Ritz, but I think it must look exactly like this,” she tells us pointlessly in one scene. Or in another: “We pass Dijon (where the mustard comes from. I hate mustard. I’m not going to eat any).” Good grief. I’m all for an unhinged, uncensored killer twin – just make sure she doesn’t start to drag.
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MAD by Chloe Esposito (A Review by Simone Gigg)
Rating 5/5
If you are looking for a roller coaster ride you will never forget then pick up this first book in the new trilogy by Esposito! I can’t wait to read the next instalment. MAD is set between London and Sicily, two of my favourite countries and wow does it cover a lot and still keeps you guessing at the end. If you love a mystery with sex, drugs, murder, jealousy, betrayal, and a bit of the Italian mafia thrown in, then you will love this book.
“Alvina Knightly has never had anything go right in her life until now. She can finally abandon her credit card debt and her fruitless three-way with Tinder and Twitter when fate gives her the chance to steal her identical twin’s perfect life. It’s just a shame Beth had to die to make Alvie’s dreams come true. She may be an accidental murderess, but who can blame her for taking lemons and making lemonade? Well… Beth’s husband might, and the police, but only if they catch her. So begins seven days of sex, violence, and unapologetic selfies – one wild week that sees Alvie break every rule in the book. She never did have much respect for boundaries.”
Although Alvie is on this crazy ride, it is hard not to like her and feel sorry for her due to the way she has been treated in the past. She is obsessed with being liked and accepted due to always being seen as second best to her twin sister Beth. But when she gets the chance to be her sister, is it all she wanted or would she prefer to be Alvie? Is her past really to blame for her current behaviour or is it something else? Will she get a tweet back from Taylor Swift or will she get to marry Channing Tatum? These are some of the things that I am sure will come to light as the roller coaster continues.
Review by Simone Gigg
Mad
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MAD by Chloe Esposito (A Review by Simone Gigg)
Rating 5/5
If you are looking for a roller coaster ride you will never forget then pick up this first book in the new trilogy by Esposito! I can’t wait to read the next instalment. MAD is set between London and Sicily, two of my favourite countries and wow does it cover a lot and still keeps you guessing at the end. If you love a mystery with sex, drugs, murder, jealousy, betrayal, and a bit of the Italian mafia thrown in, then you will love this book.
“Alvina Knightly has never had anything go right in her life until now. She can finally abandon her credit card debt and her fruitless three-way with Tinder and Twitter when fate gives her the chance to steal her identical twin’s perfect life. It’s just a shame Beth had to die to make Alvie’s dreams come true. She may be an accidental murderess, but who can blame her for taking lemons and making lemonade? Well… Beth’s husband might, and the police, but only if they catch her. So begins seven days of sex, violence, and unapologetic selfies – one wild week that sees Alvie break every rule in the book. She never did have much respect for boundaries.”
Although Alvie is on this crazy ride, it is hard not to like her and feel sorry for her due to the way she has been treated in the past. She is obsessed with being liked and accepted due to always being seen as second best to her twin sister Beth. But when she gets the chance to be her sister, is it all she wanted or would she prefer to be Alvie? Is her past really to blame for her current behaviour or is it something else? Will she get a tweet back from Taylor Swift or will she get to marry Channing Tatum? These are some of the things that I am sure will come to light as the roller coaster continues.
Review by Simone Gigg