Book review: I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde

And reviewed by cunty 'ol me

Do not read this book if you don't like metaphysical fun or gore. If you don't like gore, you will just need to skip about five pages total, not a deal breaker.

The book tells the story of an abusive relationship. One of those where people say that someone is bound to kill the other one before long.

The reader is yanked around a lot, and you won't really get the full picture until the very end, where you may realize, like I did that this whole book may just be a metaphor for mental illness.

Spoilers -> stop and buy/ borrow the book now if you want to

The book runs through a full week, that is, Monday to Monday. The first Monday, Jhonny (our main character) sees her ex- girlfriend on (what seems to be a date) with another girl at a Speakeasy. Johnny is the character we understand (at first) to be the narrator, but it quickly becomes clear that the narrator is a third party, someone who is watching Johnny very, very, very closely.

Johnny is found by Alice's dog, and Alice takes her (Johnny) home. Who knows why, who knows why victims do what they do. Johnny stays until Friday when she kills Alice.

As Johnny lives through the days of the week, she experiences crazy variations of each day. The city of New York (where the book is set, apparently, this is very unclear until it's specifically called out for some unknown reason) changes into a snow filled wasteland, the ocean, a void. Alice's apartment changes into what it needs to change into. You begin to understand that the place that Johnny is in defies the physics of our world.

When Alice is finally dead (in a gore filled description that lasts too long and I skipped, but which probably holds all sorts of metaphorical importance and meaning) Johnny is revealed to be in some sort of purgatory -- probably due to a frantic suicide attempt after killing her ex-girlfriend.

In purgatory, Johnny is two Johnnys. 1) watches from above 2) lives from below. One helps the other, one cannot stop the other, one watches the other.

Before I get into the meat of my analysis on what I think this book is about -- I want to call attention to the sheer amount of victim blaming that Jhonny does. I think this is both very interesting and important because Johnny is not getting the point -- that it was not ALice who had a problem, but Johnny. That it was not Alice who couldn't love enough, but Johnny who couldn't figure out a way to let go. Even the purgatory version of her understands that Alice is to blame.

But still, Johnny loves Alice enough to keep reliving the week over and over again, just in order to be with Alice again. To make her cum again. To be alive with her again.

Now, like I said at the start, I think this story is about mental health. Specifically, due to the "Sunday" chapter that describes the process of the two Johnny's "Starting over." It describes how the Johnny who watches forgets, and the Johnny who lives remembers and sets up all the warning signs for herself -- while the Johnny who watches gets ready to remain hopeful (once again) that the Johnny who lives will make the correct decision this time.

This feels like how it can feel to go into a manic or depressive episode. When you are feeling good as a person with these diseases, many of us will do a lot of things that will help our lives to be easier once another episode hits. We try to forget what the last time was like and hope that this "Week" we won't slip into an episode, but we still do, everytime.

In the book, the warning signs manifest as a phone number, a string of numbers that appear in various ways throughout the week. Only on Friday, after Alice is dead, does the number actually ring on a phone that Johnny can see. This reminds me of how help cna keep presenting itself to you, but if it doesn't come in a way that you can access, it will be like a number trying to ring you from a device that is not a phone.

At the end, Johnny (1+2) is given a choice, either walk through the door (other side unknown and potentially Alice-less) or live the week again. Johnny (watcher) wants to Johnny (liver) decides to go back. You always have a choice, go back to the way things were, or choose to move forward, even if that means giving up all the things you didn't want to give up in order to do that.

Good book 7/10 (taking points off cuz I don't like gore)

There's a short story at the end by the author too! So, if you read this whole thing, you're not completely spoiled -- plus; I Ieft out a pretty big plot point. You are welcome.