If you asked me what was this novel like? I would say it felt like a backstory of a Lana Del Rey song. It’s short, but powerful, tense, dense, full of emotions, full of people. What I loved about this novel is that IT DOESN’T TAKE ANY SIDES. It just tells a story. No moral, forced subtexts. No attachments. A slice of someone’s life, it’s so raw and beautiful. A look here, a look there, gathering the memories and becoming of Dolores in a bunch like collecting wildflowers from a field. Loved it.

It’s a novella more than a novel actually, really short and can be read in one sitting. One day a pregnant girl named Dolores gets to a convent, and nuns take her in. She starts to adapt to the shapely, routine life of the nuns, but there’s also her memories lurking inside as well, memories of a past that haven’t really passed.

The way Dolores sees the world and the nuns is so unique in the way it’s told, I think that’s one of the things that makes this book beautiful. Past and present chase each other in this short novel, which is not really fully a coming of age story but also kind of is? It’s really so well written, one of those books which leave you with the taste of reading a poem. I loved how it ended.

Highly recommended, a different, daring novella and I would look forward reading from Lauren Aimee Curtis again. It’s such a good book considering it’s a debut.

Dolores will be out on 25th July 2019 and I would like to thank Orion Books for sending me a review copy.