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I've read a lot of books about obsession and they're always hit and miss. I find Megan Abbott's stories about obsessive female relationships compelling while those by Robin Wasserman and Tara Isabella Burton feel forced. Recently, Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection kept me glued to the pages with a mix of pity and revulsion while This Immaculate Body just didn't work for me. I'm going to try to explain why.

The writing put me off almost immediately. I noticed another reviewer say it was overwritten, but I'd argue you could say the same about Tulathimutte's work. No, it's not just overwritten. It is written in a way that suggests to me the author was trying to be deliberately edgy. Graphic descriptions of menstrual blood and clots that try and fail to add gravity and edge to something as simple as using the bathroom. In fact, lots of weird thoughts about blood in general.

The story is about a woman called Alice who is a cleaner for a guy called Tom and she develops an obsession with him, though they have never actually met. As a cleaner, Alice is able to get acquainted with the intimate details of Tom's life from the contents of his drawers and his fridge. Conveniently, of course, unlike absolutely no one except your ninety-year-old grandpa, Tom regularly leaves his computer unlocked and without password protection so Alice can read his emails.

In Tulathimutte's Rejection, I could understand the characters' actions, even as I was repulsed by them. In This Immaculate Body I felt a disconnection, like I did not understand Alice's thoughts or actions at all.

Maybe it is because we are plunged straight into Alice's unhinged behaviour without any character development, explanation or background, but, unlike other readers, I couldn't muster any sympathy for Alice. If you want me to sympathise with someone who behaves in this way, I’m going to need more of a build-up of empathy for them. As it was, I struggled to feel sorry for Alice, which I think was crucial to liking the book.

And, unfortunately, by the time the book started to humanise Alice and offer up suggestions for why she was the way she was, it was already too little, too late for me.

I could imagine fans of heavily-written character studies like Cline's The Girls enjoying this.