Cover Image: Perfunctory Affection

Perfunctory Affection

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I didn't enjoy this one, though I have enjoyed her Hollows series.

Unfortunately, if I decline to review it, that decision is held against my reviewer tally.

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I struggled with this book. I love Kim Harrison's writing, generally, but Perfunctory Affection was hard for me. I really liked how she portrayed anxiety, and how it can really limit your world. I have anxiety, and it can really shrink your world in unexpected ways. Basic things can be really challenging. But the other aspects of Meg's mental illness didn't feel as convincing.

Overall, the story felt a little predictable and I couldn't really buy into parts of the story. I hope Kim finds her stride again, The Hollows series is just so good.

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“‘They can’t create anything; art, music, an exceptional dinner. Creation is messy and ugly, an imperfect mix of trial and failure. That’s why they want you.’”

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Subterranean Press. Trigger warnings: death, death of a parent, severe injury, car accident, fire, violence, blood, mental illness, anxiety, anxiety attacks, depression, verbal abuse.

Meg has been in therapy for three years after her mother’s death and the car accident that nearly killed her boyfriend, Austin. Dealing with depression and an anxiety that barely lets her leave the house, she’s encouraged to try a new medication. Right away, she begins feeling the effects, and they’re compounded when she meets Haley, a glamorous colleague who introduces Meg to a world of style, fun, and sophistication. Austin worries that Meg is trying to change herself too fast, and a sinister escaped patient warns her that things are not what they appear. Haley’s life is perfect, and Meg will do whatever it takes to stay in it, even if it means leaving Austin and her old self behind.

I followed Harrison’s Hollows series for a while, but I didn’t find much to enjoy about PERfunctory AfFECTION. It’s a mess of mental illness cliches and questions of whether Meg’s new friends are supernatural or a side effect of her new medication, but it fails to bring anything original or even very interesting to that conversation. I’m not sure whose side we’re supposed to be on. Austin rails against Meg’s improvements in socializing and self-confidence, and Meg treats Austin horribly and blames him for all her former problems. In terms of Meg’s recovery, I guess there’s some explanation for all of it, but I wouldn’t want to be friends with either of them.

Meg is sometimes difficult to read; her internal monologue is really critical of herself and Austin. The words 'frumpy’ and 'needy’ come up more times than I wanted to count. She also has an annoying perception of her normal life with Austin as boring and embarrassing, while Haley’s is glamorous and perfect because she’s wealthy and attractive. It’s like high school never ended, and I don’t have any tolerance for that mindset. Haley isn’t a character so much as a mannequin of the perfect woman/friend, and the novel probably would have functioned just as well if Rorry wasn’t in it at all.

I think the worst thing about it is that it’s just not enjoyable. Watching Meg and Haley shop and decorate an apartment is boring, and it reinforces that attitude that things have to look perfect to be good. I don’t know how to address the mental illness representation in the book or if it’s even attempting to be realistic, but my sense is that it’s reinforcing stereotypes that people with mental illnesses are violent or dangerous. Things escalate as Meg’s grip on reality deteriorates, but I just wasn’t interested. Nothing about the plot twist or the conclusion really blew me away, and the end is frustratingly vague with basically no payoff. I could forgive cliche, but there’s not much I can do with boring.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

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Three years ago Meg, a talented artist who also works as a university art instructor, was in a bad car accident. She was driving and her boyfriend, the passenger, was badly injured. Since then she’s dealt with PTSD, high levels of anxiety, and overwhelming guilt. She has also had trouble recovering after her mother’s death and this has led to depression. Meg is pretty messed up and has trouble teaching her classes, making friends, and coping with life in general.

As the novella opens, Meg’s psychiatrist has put her in an experimental drug study. Almost immediately, Meg feels much, much better, almost suspiciously so. Within days of starting the new medication, Meg has even made some new friends, something that had previously been all but impossible. Her boyfriend, though, suspects the drug causes hallucinations and delusions and that Meg has too quickly become wholly dependent on it. Then a strange young man starts following Meg and warning her about her new friends as well as her psychiatrist and the drug. Meg gets increasingly confused and she’s not sure who she can trust.

PERfunctory AfFECTION (2019) is a twisty and suspenseful psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator. For a very long time, there are no fantasy elements to it at all, except, of course, for the existence of the miracle drug that immediately and successfully treats anxiety and depression and outperforms pretty much everything available today, something we found unlikely and annoyingly simplistic.

Kat was interested to see where the story was going, Terry less so. Unfortunately, none of Kim Harrison’s characters felt real to either of us and we disliked every single one them. Meg is a bit sympathetic, but she’s extremely immature and completely lacks any self-awareness; her anxiety is so crippling, even after three years of therapy, that she drinks sugary coffee drinks that disgust her because she can’t muster up the courage to admit to her new friend that she prefers her coffee black. We couldn’t stand Meg. Or her friends. And her therapist should have been sued for malpractice a long time ago.

The college campus, and Meg’s job as an instructor, didn’t feel real at all. There are several examples we could list but probably the one that bugged us most was when Meg gives her class a 20-minute break so she can visit her psychiatrist during class. She goes out to the parking lot (right outside the classroom?), gets in her car and drives to her psychiatrist’s office (on campus, which is weird) and parks right outside her psychiatrist’s office. We have never been on a college campus where driving and parking were so easy.

There are other odd things about the campus, too, such as the roving popcorn vendor and affordable on-campus apartments that are still empty after the semester starts. Meg’s apartment is almost hilariously ugly, decorated only in shades of brown. What artist would live in such a place for years on end, regardless of her degree of depression? Even the shopping mall feels more like one’s idealized version of such a place, not a real spot where shoppers can pick up throw pillows. Maybe all of these oddities can be explained by Meg’s misperceptions, but it didn’t seem like that was Harrison’s intent.

Worst of all, the plot is unbelievable. For example, Meg’s psychiatrist was utterly unethical. In real life she would have lost her license, and no reputable pharmaceutical company would ever have worked with her. Meg, who is supposedly so shy and reserved that she can’t hold a conversation with a stranger, agrees to move in with a couple of people within 48 hours of meeting them, only a few days after she begins her new drug regimen, which is just as unbelievable as the notion that a stranger would make such an offer. There were so many little places where we thought, “That wouldn’t really happen that way,” making the suspension of disbelief impossible.

PERfunctory AfFECTION’s ending is not conclusive. There almost has to be a sequel, if only to explain the fantastical element that comes along only in the final third of the story. Kat was ready to drop Meg’s story until there came a big reveal in the last 30 minutes of the 6.5 hour-long audiobook version she listened to; she is willing to give the sequel a try, if only to find out what happens next. Terry will wait for Kat’s review before she gives up another evening to this story.

Tantor Audio’s edition is nicely narrated by Traci Odom.

Written with Kat Hooper. Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/perfunctory-affection/. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for the NetGalley rating system.

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Meg has suffered from depression since her mother's death. Add the guilt of hurting her boyfriend when she intentionally drove into a tree, and you have a pretty troubled young woman. Her doctor is going to let her try a new and experimental drug to help with her treatment.

I really wanted to love this book. I love The Hollows series, it is one of my all time favorites. Sadly, this one was not for me. I don't really think it should be classified as fantasy. I'm not sure what category I would put it in. I just know that I did not enjoy it.

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Sometimes I feel out of step with other readers. I thought THE DRAFTER and its sequel were both excellent novels. The mid-apocalyptic Detroit setting was well detailed. The characters' backstories came out organically as the reader's understanding of the world deepened (and the reader's experience mirrored the protagonist's confusion, at least in the first one.) Also, drafting was just a cool concept, and spy drafters even better. Alas, I felt like those things were absent in PERFUNCTORY AFFECTION. The setting is an indistinct college town in Anywhere, USA, and the mechanics of the magic at play here are rote. Worse, I didn't feel much from or about the characters either.

PERFUNCTORY AFFECTION starts in medias res as a woman, Meg, barrels down a road in her car, castigating herself for trusting various people. She gets into an accident (which reminds her, briefly, of an older accident that ended in blood on the road) after a man jumps in front of her car. They argue, then we jump back 3 days, and begin following Meg through her day. First stop is to her psychiatrist, who appears to be helping her through social anxiety and agoraphobia, stemming from the death of her mother and a brutal car accident. Meg is put on a new highly experimental drug called Fitrecepon (hint: anagram solvers are a thing) and then sent out into the world. Meg is to keep a diary and watch for paranoia and changes in diet and sleep patterns.

Which is where I run into my first set of problems. From here, Meg goes out and spontaneously makes friends with a visiting professor (Meg is an art teacher, apparently), at which point they become joined at the hip and spend the entire weekend together with escalating intimacy. I think Meg's weird toad-eating and subservience to her new friend Haley is right in line with her dismal self esteem and her fervent desire to overcome her anxiety. I think she also would be hungry for a drug to be a magic bullet, which is how she treats it, even after Dr. Jillium's warnings. But Dr. Jillium should have her license revoked for how she handles a highly experimental drug (which is apparently not even in trials, it's so experimental, which is not how any of that works.)

My mother's best friend has cancer, and last month they decided to try a new chemo drug on her. She went into the office and was hooked up to the rig, where they pushed a few secondary drugs first. Then they hung the bag with the drug in it. Jay watched the drug run down the tube to her hand, and the moment the drug hit her bloodstream, she went into anaphylactic shock. They had to do the whole Pulp Fiction epi pen to the heart thing right there as her husband watched on in horror. This and other terrible side effects of, really, any drug are always possibilities; ask me about how contrast dye makes my body break out in hives! When Meg blows off keeping a diary of the effects of the drug, that should have been the end of it, right there, day one.

The opening bit also blows any sense of creeping dread we may feel. Haley, Haley's roommate, Meg's boyfriend, Austen: they are all under suspicion by the reader, which made me read a lot closer for tells and slip-ups by the characters. Of course Haley and her friend-boy are not to be trusted; we have that knowledge from the first. Meg's escalating paranoia about Jillium and Austen reads exactly like a side effect, which no one seems to see but the reader. That all is not right with Meg's sense of what is real and what isn't is telegraphed so loudly that I had the twist figured well before it hit. While I don't think that's a bad thing in all instances -- sometimes the tension between what the reader knows and the characters do can be a cool effect -- in this case it made me skim a bit until I could get to where Meg catches up.

I don't want to land too hard here. This may come off as a bitchy thing to say, though I don't mean it that way, but PERFUNCTORY AFFECTION is readable as hell, and I was halfway through before my brain started screaming about Dr. Jillium. The novel moves along at such a fast clip that I didn't have any time to start nitpicking, and even when I started, I was compelled to read to the end. I am not in any way a completist, and abandon at least half the books I start. Meg's genuine rush at overcoming some of her anxiety is well rendered, and I think in general her mental illness is dealt with sensitively (though I'm a little unsure about that ending.)

So, on the balance PERFUNCTORY AFFECTION was a nice read on a Sunday, but I just didn't think it was up to the quality of THE DRAFTER, which of course no one read because the world is deeply unfair. The cover is also aces.

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*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

DNF @ 39%

As a huge fan of The Hollows, I was so excited to see something new out by this author. I jumped on getting the ARC and dived into the book with an abundance of excitement. Which makes not finishing this novel so much more difficult for me.

I was bored reading this one. The writing wasn't working for me and the story felt like it was dragging. I also have a problem with people who take medication and don't properly keep track of it. It isn't the medication I have a problem with, please don't misunderstand-- it is the casual popping of pills without keeping records (like you're told to) and not following a doctor's orders.

Another problem, and this one is very much personal choice, is I actually have a hard time reading books with unreliable narrators. There are very few that I've been able to read and enjoy, so people who don't mind this type of storytelling, may enjoy this book much more than I did.

I do think there is an audience for this book -- those who don't mind slower pacing and unreliable narrators, but it just wasn't for me. This won't keep me from reading more from this author! I will definitely try her next novel as well.

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I am going to start off and say i am a die hard fan of The Hollows series! So when I saw a review copy on Netgalley, I jumped on it. Read the summary and was like this will be interesting. More of a thriller!

It's giving me such great pains to say I had to stop reading this book. The first couple of pages left my head hurting. I skimmed after that, and decided I had to sadly DNF the book.

I'm going to try and pick back up in a couple months and I hope my mindset will change.

I received this via Netgalley in a exchange for an honest review

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I can't tell if Kim Harrison's writing style isn't for me or if this was just the worst possible introduction to her work, because so many of my friends LOVE her, but this writing style threw me off from literally the very first page and never got any better. I skimmed through the first few chapters and was just disliking every moment of it. Normally, since it was an ARC, I'd try to power through and only DNF after a good 1/4 of the book or more was over, but I've been in and out of a slump lately and I'm not willing to risk slumping again for this. :(

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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Meg is dealing with horrible anxiety after she caused a car accident that permanently injured her live-in boyfriend. She is on a new experimental drug from her therapist that seems to be helping her cope. As she is starting to move forward and teach painting again at the local college Austin moves out as his way of helping Meg move on with her life. Meg then meets up with Haley a new instructor at the school who befriends her as she is asking Meg for help as she is settling down in her new job with her boyfriend. But for some reason Austin and Haley never meet but they don’t seem to like much about the either.
As the story progresses you find out that Austin has been in contact with Meg’s therapist and it sets up trust issues with Meg as she starts to wonder if the changes she is finally making in her life are her choices or only the new drug she is taking. The story doesn’t end where you think it will and it make you want to reread it to see what you might have missed on the first read through.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

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Quirky book about Meg and her experience ps with reality. What is real and what is not. The reader gets to decide. ARC from NetGalley.

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Perfunctory Affection is the newest novella from Kim Harrison. It explores the concepts of love, perfection, life, truth, and understanding. It’s a heavy but fascinating read, delving deep into anxiety, depression, and delusions.
This novella lands somewhere between a science fiction horror and an individual’s journey to understanding what’s happening to them. It has a touch of fantasy as well, which I personally appreciated.
This is nothing quite like any of Kim Harrison’s other works, and that’s okay. I enjoyed it anyway – though if I’m being entirely truthful her name being on the novella is the main reason why I became curious about it to begin with.
Warnings: This novella delves deeply into the mind of a woman who has gone through a significant amount of trauma. She doesn’t always know what is real, and because of what has happened to her she does have some phobias and anxiety to deal with. The subject matter frequently hits close to home, especially with how Kim Harrison portrayed the human nature of it all.
Perfunctory Affection was nothing quite like anything I’ve read, and I mean that as a positive thing. It stands out on its own, this new tale blending different genres into something new. I really enjoyed it, even if it did make my skin crawl at times (in a good way, I promise).
Kim Harrison’s portrayal of Meg was so well done; it caused a litany of emotions to pour out of the pages. Me’s is confused, she’s passionate, she’s talented, she’s lost, she’s struggling, she’s trying to get better. These are all different versions of Meg, while also very much being the same person.
Throughout the novel Meg’s grasp of reality is constantly put into question. It was eerie at times, and downright disturbing at other points. To make matters more disturbing, we’re never given any concrete proof about which reality is the accurate one. We never know for sure if all of the hallucinations are truly that…it was brilliantly done.
I’ll admit that I cringed at the idea of a medication that made permanent changes to the brain so quickly. It sounds so terrifying and risky. You’d think that with something that strong they’d want the patient to be under more supervision – but then again maybe you need to be in your normal surroundings for it to have the ideal effect. It’s still a disturbing thought though.
I loved all the questions that rose up over the course of this novella. I had so many theories as I read along, and I can honestly tell you that in truth none of them were proven or disproven in the end. I kind of like that. I love that while the story was very clearly wrapped up, there were still questions to be asked.

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I am a HUGE fan of Kim Harrison. I was excited to read her newest departure from The Hollows. Overall I did enjoy this story... it was an interesting read however there is not any one thing that stood out as exemplary. However, the ending left me wanting a more layered twist or satisfying culmination of events.

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I wasn't sure what I would be getting into with this read. I only knew that it was written by Kim Harrison, so I had to read it. At first I thought it so different, not bad, just different than what I expected of her. Yet as I read on, became engrossed in the lives of the charecters, I realized it wasn't so different after all.

Kim Harrison has this amazing ability to build a story, build a world. She drops it piece by piece, unravels it bit by bit. This allows a reader to savor every morsel. What a delicious read it was too. I genuinely did not forsee the twists it took, and as I neared the end I was torn between wanting to know and not wanting it to be over.

As usual, I loved it. I'll read it again. I'll recommend it. And all,the while I'll hope for more.

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Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Kim Harrison. I tore through her Hollows series and fell in love with that world all over again with her prequel. I read both of the Drafter novels that were published, and would reread them and buy the third if it ever gets published. I'm sad that it hasn't. I'm super pumped that she's got more Hollows in the works.

Unfortuntely, it seems that the Hollows is where she shines, and, at least thus far, her more science fiction leaning books aren't as good as her urban fantasy. The Drafter was good, but nowhere near as good as her Hollows, and this standalone was an entertaining read, but it also didn't live up to her Hollows standards.

In this one, I really liked her concept and her execution. The ending, though, didn't feel like much of a payoff after reading so much to build to that point. I feel like it was a little cliched with the potential of a nice twist that instead was left hanging.

I enjoyed the book though, just by the end wasn't super excited about it when I know she's capable of much more as an author. I hope she finds her mojo again! 3 stars, recommended for those who like thriller-type stories where you're never sure if the protagonist is cray-cray or not.

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While I am a huge fan of the Hallows series and the Peri Reed series, I must admit that I'm not a fan of Harrison's newest venture. For some reason that I don't understand, the newest fad is writing about characters who are not likable, and Meg certainly fits into this category. I wanted to like her. I wanted to feel sorry for her. However, as a character, Meg takes too many steps forward too quickly. Would you walk away from a relationship of three years in a single weekend? Would you move in with people you have just met? Would you change everything about yourself just to "fit in" with the "perfect" people? While I am sure that there are people in real life who would do all of these things and more, I definitely didn't think that Meg would be that kind of person, especially with her background.
In addition, using a psychiatrist and a new "medication" to help bring about Meg's changes could trigger certain readers. For those looking for a magic cure to their psychological problems, this might cause them to have unrealistic expectations. Of course, for those who don't believe in therapy and medication, this might give them a good reason to avoid both. I disliked how both were used to force Meg's growth / change.
In the end, I feel that Harrison needs to spend more time working with this story. The concept has great potential, but the story fails to deliver.

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Having enjoyed Harrison's Hollows series, I wasn't sure what to expect with PERfunctory AfFECTION. Harrison delivers an compelling tale of a woman trying desperately to get back to a sense of normal after a horrific car crash. Meg is trying new medication prescribed by her doctor to help her with her inability to live a normal life. Meg's relationship with her boyfriend, Austin, is tested when Meg makes two new friends that help her take huge strides in reclaiming her life as a result of taking this medication. Add in a mysterious homeless man and an FBI agent, and you got an exciting story that keeps you guessing from beginning to end.

Harrison does a great job at setting up a compelling story that captures the reader's attention from the very beginning and never lets go. Meg is well developed as a character, and the reader's journey with Meg as she makes these strides helps get the reader invested in this character. The book's story depends upon the reader getting invested in Meg's journey to get better, and Harrison successfully pulls that off. The story gets complicated when Meg begins to question what is real and what is not as well as who she can really trust. PERfunctory AfFECTION is a great read that I would most definitely recommend.

Received a copy of PERfunctory AfFECTION through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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This was an odd one for me, I'm not even sure what to shelf it under and very unlike the author's other work.

I felt for Meg, she seems at a cross-roads in her life, a life that has been tough for her lately. All of a sudden new people appear in her life and she seems to take control, getting away from bad things, embracing new things, her life looking up. Then the last part of the book happens and you wonder what they hell you just read, what was real and what wasn't. But most of all I feel sorry for Meg, maybe the not real would have been better for her.

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Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this early copy!

I went into this mix between a thriller and paranormal novel without knowing what it was about or being familiar with the author. I mainly picked it because of the cover. It was an interesting read but at parts it was hard to follow. The ending left me wanting more. It was left too open ended for my taste. Also, the formatting of the Netgalley ARC made it hard to read.

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Perfunctory Affection is a stand-alone novel from Kim Harrison of the Hollows fame, set in a world that appears to be very similar to our own. I absolutely *adored* the Hollows novels, and it pains me greatly to have had such a negative reaction to this book. Meg, the protagonist, has such immature reactions to every situation she finds herself in that I couldn't take her seriously as an adult character. She questions whether two characters are "boyfriend, girlfriend;" she notes that a character of color's "ancestry" makes her "exotic and graceful;" and she develops a deeply felt friendship with another woman based on a 5-minute interaction.

The way in which certain psychological experiences were handled was poignant, and the big twist didn't feel too forced, but neither made up for serious suspension of disbelief that was required in order to plow through the book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

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