What world does Clare live in where she thinks adults actually take seriously and hold grudges over stupid adolescent behavior that happened in the distant past? Yes, Clare is afraid that she will be judged and ridiculed now, at age 26 (like Nora), because when she was 16, she played a mean, nasty, adolescent trick on Nora and made Nora think that James had dumped her. Now, what's more ridiculous than a grown woman who cannot get over a break-up that happened a decade previously when she was an adolescent? How about her former best friend, Clare-who is now, rather conveniently, engaged to James, Nora's previous boyfriend, the one who broke her heart-fearing that people will hate her and be disgusted by her because when she, Clare, was 16, she basically caused the break-up between Nora and James by sending a break-up text to Nora from James's phone-unbeknownst to James-so that Nora would think that the text was really from James? A break-up that happened 10 years ago! Sheeesh! Because of a break-up with her teen-aged boyfriend. The break-up was brought on by her unexpected teen pregnancy (which she aborted), but Nora herself makes it clear that she was not upset so much by the pregnancy or the abortion: it was the break-up with James that has left her an emotional wreck as an adult, unable to form stable, long-term relationships. My god, but you would think the world all but ended when she broke up with her boyfriend, James, over ten years ago, and, yes, Yes, 16! What kind of loser is so affected by an adolescent relationship that she or he allows it to poison all of her or his adult relationships? I'll tell you what kind of loser: the whiny, childish, immature, insipid Nora. She is a 26-year-old woman who is still haunted by and distraught over a break-up that happened when she was 16.

To be fair, I didn't hate Nora so much as find myself repulsed by her. Earlier this year, I found Rachel, the protagonist of The Girl on the Train, to be annoying and very unlikable, but I didn't hate her. I don't think I've disliked a protagonist as much as Nora, the main character in In a Dark, Dark Wood, in ages.

Book review in a dark dark wood