A fun, dark humorous story about Julie Tudor and her actions. She is totally unhinged and obsessed with her coworker, Sean, and the story follows her as she is determined for him to love her.

The story is entertaining and we get a lot of Julie's internal rationalization of her actions. For her age of 49, she seems naive in her views.

I did find the story a bit repetitive in the middle and felt it drag a bit.

Clare Corbett is a new to me narrator and she embodied Julie's character so well.

Thank you @tantoraudio for a copy of the audiobook.

Okay, I loved this. Like, I lovedddd this. Julie Tudor and all her psychopathic delusional glory. One of my favorite things to read/listen to is an unhinged person doing unhinged things with zero self awareness. I will gladly take this in any genre. In this case, I guess this is a bit of a thriller, but it's mostly really funny.

Holdich does an amazing job of having us in Tudor's head, while also showing us what's really going on. It's really impressive to have an entire story narrated by a person who is completely oblivious to what's going on and yet still relay relevant info so that we're in the know.

Also, I blame Billy for everything. Justice for Julie.

I'm a fan of the narrator Clare Corbett. I've heard her narrate a bunch of thrillers, but I think my favorite is her narration of How to Age Disgracefully. It's possible that my fondness for Julie comes in part from my affection for prior characters narrated by Corbett.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ALC. I suspected that I was going to love it based on the title and it did not disappoint.

Julie is kind of a stalker. She’s obsessed with her coworker, a man half her age and she doesn’t want to take no for an answer. This is Julie in the present, but we also get to witness her in the past when she’s sure and older, married doctor is madly in love with her. I love the fact that the author made the woman the stalker and put her in control whereas so many books cast the heroine as the victim. Great fun.

3.5 rounded up for a fun voice!

Told in an alternating dual timeline, the story explores obsession through two different ‘great loves’ of Julie Tudor’s life.

In the present, 49 year old Julie Tudor has a great life, a great job, and a great, big crush on her 25-year-old coworker, Sean. Sean is sending her mixed signals (no, he isn’t), but she knows how to persevere in the face of a lover who hasn’t quite accepted that’s what he is yet.

In the past, a young Julie is working in a hospital under a kind doctor who’s secretly in love with her (no, he isn’t). There’s just one problem: his wife.

I thoroughly enjoy an unhinged obsessive protagonist on a thriller and Julie was fun to follow in a role that’s normally filled by creepy single men. The pacing wasn’t fully there for me, but the voice was fun enough that I never tired of this. I’d definitely read more from Holdich!

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Clare Corbett. Such a fun listen! She was a delightful fit for the unhinged protagonist (not saying anything about her personally, but rather the brilliance of her read). Highly recommend!

Thanks, NetGalley and Tantor Audio, for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Julie is an older woman in love (obsessed) with her younger coworker. She's unreliable, oblivious, and completely unhinged. The book has dark humor which might not be for everyone. I listened to the audiobook in just one day. It was a fun, quick listen. The narrator did a wonderful job with the various stages of Julie's life. I loved how Julie called it "The Facebook."

Favorite quote: "If you want a job done properly, get a woman to do it."

Thanks to Netgalley and Tantor Audio for the ALC.

ALC review

This book was a lot more unhinged than I expected.

Thank you Tantor Audio for the advance listener copy.
Opinions from this review are completely my own.

Julie Tudor is a very interesting character and the book is different from what I read before.
The story is told in first person and we have only Julie's POV.
Also, there are multiple timelines (from the 70's to 2010 - the present) and find out more about Julie's past.

The first part of the book was funny (in a dark way), but along the way I did not find her actions funny at all.
This book shows you the mind of a psychopath that has many delusions, obsessions and along the way kills a few people.
I just cannot understand how she got away with it for so long.

Of course that the she can be an unreliable narrator and may be there are some fact that we do not know.

The audiobook is narrated by Clare Corbett, that did a great job as Julie.
Her voice is a bit different in Julie's life stages and her narration kept me interested in the story.
As there are multiple timelines, you need to pay attention at the start of the chapter to know in which year we are.

There were a few time that I wanted to DNF the book, but I continued to see if she will at least be punished.
I ended up finishing the book, but I will not spoil the ending.

Please be aware that this has a few content warnings, including mention of animal cruelty, violence, murder, mental illness.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc and alc.

I am a bit conflicted on how to rate this book. I didn't love it, yet I did not hate it either. I laughed sometimes, yet I was utterly creeped out at times too. I just have to say that I really hope this book is satire. Otherwise, we have some issues here. I also thought the audiobook narrator had a good voice and was pleasant to listen to.

I might try more books by this author in the future.

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

This book is UNHINGED. I laughed so hard at this woman's ridiculous delusions and decisions. It's funny and dark and thoroughly enjoyable!

Update:
I was able to get the Audiobook ALC as it just came out on NetGalley and so am so glad so did! It was a really quick listen at 2x speed making it come in just at 4 hours. I completely made me adore the book way more than I did!

The narrator Clare Corbett did a fabulous job with her vocals! Her British accented voice was perfect for the character giving her the snark and edge that she needed. The parts where I got bogged down initially were not an issue at all! While I sped it up to 2x it wasn’t needed at all as she spoke at a great natural pace. I highly suggest grabbing this as an audiobook when it becomes available on July 15th as I’ll be getting my own copy so I can keep it in my Audible library! Thank you to Tantor Audio for the ALC!!

Original:
Well that wasn’t what I was expecting and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it! On one hand I was propelled to keep reading on the other hand how awful can a human being be?

I think the cover and the description of the book made me feel like the book was going to be a bit more lighthearted. And it certainly tried to bring a quirky humor and general levity to the goings on inside the FMCs head but it wasn’t fully effective as it got too “serious dark”. All that is to say is that the FMC truly does have deep seated mental illness and sociopathy.

Over all the book was well written and fast paced. There was some repetition that made it feel a bit bogged down at points but it was quick to get back on track.

But overall I was intrigued and enjoyed watching most of it unfold. I was disappointed in the ending though as it wrapped up so quickly that it felt like I was missing something.

The. lol comes out June 24th 2025 if you want to take a stab at it! I will say that I think this book would be very effective in audio format so I may check it out once published.

I am thankful to have gotten a complimentary eARC from Sourcebooks- Landmark through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again