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5 stars. My first time reading a "literary thriller," but the writing was utterly superb, but let's be honest, I'm sure the original text is amazing but Sophie Hughes is the GOAT. Even for a bad book like Perfection she somehow made it readable.

Clean is absolutely a slow burn, but with short chapters, and rather accessible prose, while still being deep, thoughtful, and at times a bit like a fever dream (can we always trust what the narrator is witnessing or what she perceives the situation to be?). But this is a dark book with the right amounts of bleakness and existential ponderings that I personally eat up. Little to no dialogue and mostly just this domestic worker recounting her life and the events leading up to the crime she is defending herself from from this unknown, unseen, and unheard of jury? Sign me up!

The final 60 pages really clinched this for me, and the final few in particular I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Everything culminated beautifully here in terms of the story and is just open ended enough to leave you questioning everything you just read. I would widely recommend this book, but trigger warning for animal death at the end - personally, I cried.