Whatever You Love

by Louise Doughty 

REVIEWER – ANNA KASSULKE

If you’re emotionally vulnerable or just plain flat then Whatever You Love is not for you. This offering from A&U is not a feel-good novel by any stretch. On the other hand if you enjoy poking around in other people’s minds – minds filled with intense sadness and regret – then this is the book for you.

There is a knock at the door and Laura turns to see the silhouettes of two figures. The police officers have come to tell her that her nine-year-old daughter, Betty, was run over and killed on her way home. Laura goes into shock, but in the process also revises her life, loves and hates.

The book is very well structured. We begin with the knock at the door and then go back in time to Laura’s earlier years, her courtship and marriage to David, Betty’s birth, her mother’s illness and so on. Then we return to the present and her state of mind as she tries to accept that Betty is really gone. Laura is an ordinary character – there is nothing exceptional about her or her circumstances and in some ways this is why the book resonates. Each of us could be standing at the edge of a similar abyss at any time, without warning. We are, after all, often at the mercy of fate.

Laura, however, refuses to comply with fate – she takes life and death into her own hands. She becomes obsessed with the man who ran over her daughter. She vows ‘I am going to find out what you love, then whatever it is, I am going to track it down and I am going to take it away from you’.

Louise Doughty manages to present us with a well-developed character in the midst of incredible grief. But she does this at a cost - by frequently resorting to metaphorical imagery which comes across as forced at times. When you are feeling jilted, why not ‘chip at the furry lining of ice inside the freezer with a blunt knife’? This is a little confusing - is the furry lining, the freezer or the blunt knife meant to represent Laura? Or is the defrosting process one of life’s necessary hurdles? Hmm.

Laura’s ‘journey’ (if you need to call it that) is strong and it rings true, despite the fluff. Most female readers would find this story heart-wrenching, but also redemptive in some ways. Laura goes a little too far for some, perhaps, but at least Doughty has structured the story in such a way that we are very clear about her motives.

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty, Allen&Unwin,RRP $32.99