First Date

One thing I love about Gemma Amor: she does not give a f@#! as evidenced by the opening paragraphs of First Date.

In as many words as I’m taking for this review, she subverts sex, beautiful sunsets over the water, and even good old-fashioned run of the mill serial killing. But she does it using language (for the most part) that lulls you into believing you’re reading classical  literature. Don’t fall for it! She’s here to take us on a delightfully disturbing ride.

Cut to: PoVs of a couple about to go on a First Date: Amandine and Connor, and we are looking at both of them through their own as well as each other’s eyes as they get to know each other through text messaging then make the leap to a date IRL (in real life), the first for both of them in a long time (or ever!)

Of course, their date was doomed from the start; even if they hadn’t brought their own baggage, they soon find themselves at the mercy of a sadistic kidnapper and in a fight for survival.

First Date is a novel about trauma - the ingrained trauma from childhoods with abusive or absent parents, the trauma of being different, of loneliness, of the need for connection with another human - in the trappings of a survival horror, in Amor’s hands, an anxiety-inducing thrill ride of its own.

Besides writing a legitimately thrilling survival horror, in First Date, Gemma Amor creates three distinct characters and puts us in their shoes, and even though it’s going to disturb us to varying degrees, she makes us feel what they feel, to the point of making us question all their motives at any given time, which just serves to increase the tension and have me turn the pages even faster to get to the conclusion - well worth the ride.

Randomlings

• Nice Watchmen reference

• Where would modern horror be if people didn’t keep their phones at nearly 0% battery for some reason?

• The most stressful part of an overall tense novel is when Connor dismisses Amandine’s “women’s intuition” about the villain.

Thank you to NetGalley and Datura Books for the advance copy for my unbiased review.