L'Autre Reflet

Review in English because that's the language most of my Goodreads friends speak but I read the French edition, if a translated edition exists, I cannot speak of its quality.

In my early 20s I really loved that author's stuff, Aliss and Oniria being some of my favorite reads at the time so when I felt in the mood to read in French one of his titles seemed like the safest bet.

The main POV character, Michaël aka Mike is a semi-decent dude slowly digging his way to utter mediocrity, his only redeeming quality seems to be his love for his son but even in that he isn't that great (that relationship isn't really built on in the book and all of Mike's relationships come across as kind of shallow).

The secondary POV is Wanda, a serial killer whose crimes Mike used in his most successful book (insert “f*cking MIKE” sound here for my fellow brain rot speakers). Wanda's dialogues were so stilted and unnatural that I almost wonder if the intent was for it to be unsettling or something. A lot of her POV is told in the form of journal entries and while they did a great job of showing the character's immaturity, they also made her sound quite insignificant which in turn made her control of the situation seem quite farfetched.

The premise that particularly visceral kill scenes would make or break a polar/noir book came across as kind of flimsy to me but then again, I read a fair amount of murdery stuff and I know that visceral kill scenes sell but not necessarily to a mainstream audience otherwise extreme horror would be having a field day.

Ultimately, I found this book to be rather weak, interesting enough to finish but nothing too memorable.