Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine
The Push meets The Silent Patient in a gripping thriller that follows a woman convinced a sinister figure is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens—while the men in her life refuse to believe a word she says.
Anna Alcott is desperate to be pregnant. But as she tries to balance her increasingly public life with a grueling IVF journey, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments get swapped without her knowledge. And even when she finally manages to get pregnant, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone’s playing a twisted game with her.
When the increasingly cryptic threats drive her out of her Brooklyn brownstone and into hiding in the cold, gray ghost town that is the Hamptons in the depths of winter, Anna is almost at the end of her rope.
Then her doctor tells her she’s had a miscarriage—except Anna’s convinced she’s still pregnant, despite everything the grave-faced men around her claim. Could it be that her mind is playing tricks on her? Or is something more sinister at play? As her symptoms become ever more horrifying and the sense of danger ever more present, Anna can’t help but wonder what exactly she’s carrying inside of her…and why no one will listen when she says something is horribly, painfully wrong.
Review:
I did my best to choose only one book per author for this month; otherwise, I probably would have included three more Riley Sagers and a few more by Darcy Coates. I went back and forth on including this one since I’d already read “How to Solve Your Murder” by this other and finally decided to give it a go since it is the basis for this year’s American Horror Story, and I wanted to watch it but wanted to read the book first. And here we are.
The book focuses on Anna Alcott. A woman in her late 30s who’s desperately been trying to get pregnant and has resorted to IVF. Anna is an actress, and thanks to her role in an Indy flick, she is a frontrunner for an Oscar and heavily in the public eye. As Anna gets deeper into her IVF journey, she feels like something weird is going on. Calendar appointments keep mysteriously changing on her calendar, and she seems to be being followed. When Anna awakens to find a woman in her bedroom, she and her husband decide to pack up and go stay in the Hamptons at a friend’s house for a few months. It’s just them and their bodyguard – far from the public eye.
The stress of it all causes Anna to suffer a miscarriage. She and her husband are devastated, but then a few days later, Anna feels movement in her belly and experiences morning sickness. She is convinced that she is still pregnant, even though everyone around her tells her there’s no way she could be. She also feels as though she’s still being followed, but no one will listen to her. Is she losing her mind over the grief of the miscarriage, or is she actually pregnant? And more importantly, is there really someone after her and her unborn baby?
While I ended up liking the book, I didn’t totally love it, and the thing is, I can’t exactly pinpoint why I wasn’t more into this one.
As far as characters go, I did like Anna, and I felt that all of the characters in the story were unique in personality, and each one served a purpose. I never felt confused as to who was who, who I trusted, and who I didn’t. The book is told from the third-person perspective and focuses on Anna. This worked, but I feel like had we gotten a first-person, present perspective, it would have amped up the intensity and would have provided a more intimate connection with Anna.
One of the things that really works for the book is its atmospheric setting. The author brings the cold, gray ghost town of the Hamptons in winter to life, infusing the narrative with an eerie and chilling backdrop. The desolation of the setting compounds the growing sense of danger that Anna faces, adding an extra layer of suspense to the story.
One of the author’s strengths is her ability to build tension and create suspense. The plot twists and turns kept me guessing as I read. As Anna’s state of mind grows fragile and the weird things become more frequent, we desperately want to know what is happening. Very few people believe Anna’s claims that someone is out to get her, and we desperately want to know if these things are real or not, and if so – who is behind it and why. Each revelation uncovers a new layer of the mystery, leaving readers perplexed and guessing until the very end.
The book offers an intriguing exploration of the depths of the human mind. Anna’s relentless conviction that she is still pregnant and her insistence that something or someone is after her while no one believes her is maddening. The fragility of the character’s psychological state adds depth and complexity to the narrative, making the story feel all the more haunting.
While the book is undeniably gripping, there are moments where the pacing feels slightly uneven. I’m also on the fence over how I feel about the revelation and how the ending played out. For whatever reason, I can’t make it make sense in my head – even when I suspend disbelief. Something just feels off about it, but of course, I can’t go into more detail lest I spoil it for you. That said, the overall impact of the story is still pretty powerful, and many readers are likely to be less bothered by these things than I was.
Overall, this was a fun and slightly unsettling novel that many fans of psychological thrillers will love. For me, it was a decent read – I just didn’t love it.
