How much can you blame on your mom?
When I came across this book as one of the most anticipated new books of the year, I requested it from my library because I thought it sounded interesting. Who doesn’t love a good ghost story?
But the “ghosts” in this book are mainly the main character’s own bad decisions. I think I could still get behind a book with that focus if the main character took any responsibility at all for her own decisions, but she wants to blame everything on everyone else.
Our heroine, Eleanor, was sexually assaulted by one of her professors, and though she reported the abuse, the school of course sided with the professor.
Eleanor moved back in with her mom to recover. Her mom let her wallow for a while, then gently but firmly helped her get back on her feet, making sure she finished her degree, got a job, and moved into her own apartment.
But her mom continued to take care of her, buying groceries and doing all the cooking and cleaning so Eleanor could focus on her career as a therapist.
It is wild to me that Eleanor works in mental health and yet, not only is her own mental health in such a terrible state, but she doesn’t even try to address it. She’s not seeing a therapist herself or even journaling to try to work through her feelings.
The book starts shortly after Eleanor’s mom has died of cancer, leaving Eleanor a pile of money and instructions to use that money to buy a house so she can secure her financial future.
But, despite the fact that her mom worked hard and saved up all her life, Eleanor has a hard time finding a home she can afford. When she finally finds one, it seems too good to be true… because it is.
Her realtor urges her to hurry up and put in an offer before the house gets snatched up by someone else. He claims they don’t have time for an inspection, which should have been a huge red flag.
Later, after everything goes to shit, Eleanor blames it on the fact that she’s “bad with money,” as though that’s a fixed state of being and there’s nothing she can do about it. Yes, her mom did her a disservice by not explaining to her how to leverage and make the most of her money, but she refuses to acknowledge that she’s a grownass woman responsible for her own choices.
Almost as soon as she moves into the new house, a Biblical rain starts up and continues for days. First she has trouble getting into the house when the lock jams and she has to call a super-sketchy locksmith who extorts a ridiculous amount of money from her, then water starts seeping in through the windows. Then it turns out the house wasn’t even waterproofed and she doesn’t even have insurance on the house because the purchase was so rushed and she’s so committed to being a dumb bitch.
SPOILER ALERT
Towards the end of the book, we learn that, while Eleanor’s mom was dying of cancer, she refused to take any pain medicine. When the pain got to be unbearable, she would beg for pain relief, and of course Eleanor would oblige. Then, when she was feeling better, she would berate Eleanor for giving her the drugs, which left Eleanor in a pretty impossible situation.
Eventually, she decided enough was enough and she asked Eleanor to give her all the pain meds at once and Eleanor did.
I can understand how hard that must have been for Eleanor to do, but I’m pro assisted suicide and I don’t think this books is. It seems to want to punish Eleanor for abiding by her mom’s wishes and helping her die on her own terms.
I guess one could make the argument that, on some level, Eleanor intentionally threw away her mom’s inheritance because she didn’t feel she deserved it, but that means she’s going against her mother’s dying wish, which feels more like punishing her dead mom.
I was frustrated that, even at the end of the book, Eleanor doesn’t seem to take responsibility for her past actions, but she at least wakes up enough to realize she has two choices: to drown with these ghosts or decide to live.