Review: Great Title
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 15, 2012
Claire - her name.  Obscure - not clear - describes her.  Her life.  Her wants and desires.  What she wants from Finn.  He asked her to move in with him but they don't share a bed.  They don't share their bodies.  Does she want to?  She doesn't know.  Her feelings toward him are obscure - not clear - and he's not making it easy.  He's just as messed up as she is.  Probably more so as you will learn.Other parts of her life are obscure to her.  Her father is gay.  Her mother has never showed her affection.  She wants so much to please her mother.  To receive some kind of praise.  A hug.  Some affection.  She studies and memorizes words in her dictionaries.  If only she selects and uses the correct word then maybe her mother would love her.Obscure - confusing - Taken advantage of repeatedly during high school, she is unclear whether she enjoys it or not.  Confused.  And Beth her boss.  There's confusion there as well.  Beth wants her but Finn doesn't seem to.She shows how small she thinks of herself in the way she signs the letters she doesn't mail, using all small letters instead of initial caps.  She makes a phone call to a disc jockey just to have someone to talk to.Claire is involved in three relationships.  One as confusing as the other because each has holes - voids they need to fill.  Pain they need to extinguish.Suspicious death of a friend.  A bi-sexual relationship. Cutting. Rape.All this yet it's not done for its shock value but as part of the lives and pain each endures.  Escape.  Need.This is unlike any other I've read.  Everything about this story is dark including the clothes our protagonist wears.  The sex she uses as a means of filling the void and in place of love, never does what she wants it to, leaving her almost an empty shell of herself.The ending feels very rushed.  I'll explain below as a spoiler.  Otherwise, this story is well-thought out and rich with emotion, and that being mostly of deep pain and sadness.*** Spoiler *** I would have expected more from Finn at the end especially since he had such a hold over her.  There's no chase where he tries to win her back.  No fight for her from Raoul.  Her therapy is only mentioned in the last letter she writes but doesn't send.  It's as though she left Finn and things only got better from there with hardly a struggle.