Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine | Horror Fiction Review

I wanted to like this one a little more than I actually did.

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

Released August 2023

Source: Received for Review Consideration & Purchased from Audible

Goodreads | Amazon

The Push meets The Silent Patient in a gripping thriller that follows a woman convinced a sinister figure is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens—while the men in her life refuse to believe a word she says.

Anna Alcott is desperate to be pregnant. But as she tries to balance her increasingly public life with a grueling IVF journey, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments get swapped without her knowledge. And even when she finally manages to get pregnant, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone's playing a twisted game with her.

When the increasingly cryptic threats drive her out of her Brooklyn brownstone and into hiding in the cold, gray ghost town that is the Hamptons in the depths of winter, Anna is almost at the end of her rope.

Then her doctor tells her she's had a miscarriage—except Anna's convinced she's still pregnant, despite everything the grave-faced men around her claim. Could it be that her mind is playing tricks on her? Or is something more sinister at play? As her symptoms become ever more horrifying and the sense of danger ever more present, Anna can't help but wonder what exactly she's carrying inside of her...and why no one will listen when she says something is horribly, painfully wrong.

My 2 Cents for Free!

AHS (American Horror Story) adapted Delicate for the newest season and the final half will be airing soon. I’m so excited to see what they do with this story and I hope they don’t do what they sometimes do and go off in weird and pointless directions.

I started this book in October. Oh, what a simpler time it was. I put it down in November because it wasn’t grabbing me and I felt like I was too distracted to appreciate all it was telling me. This was back before the dumbass politicians in my country began to further fuck with a woman’s personal decisions and healthcare by saying fertilized eggs are now children so IVF treatments may be out of reach for anyone but the wildly wealthy. And maybe not even them unless they want to pay to keep their eggs on ice forever . . . It’s so disgusting and disturbing. Anyhow, I picked it back up a few days ago and with all of that going on it adds another layer of horror to this story that wasn’t there just a few weeks ago. Content warning for (view spoiler)

Anna and her husband Dex had a whirlwind romance and they want babies right away and go the IVF route. Just as Anna’s career has taken off. The IVF is beyond stressful and now Anna is experiencing strange and sinister events. When she tells the people closest to her she’s met with disbelief and left feeling like she’s overreacting (Dex, you dick). As the book moves on (a bit too slowly, if you ask me) everyone from Dex to the doctors make her feel as if her pain is all in her head, that she’s being a bit hysterical - treating her like she’s a Victorian child in an old movie, one who can’t make her own decisions or who doesn’t know that something may be wrong with her own body. It is infuriating. I was infuriated on her behalf which is the entire point of the story. The horror part of the story is a bit tame compared to the real-life horror happening.

I feared this would be a simple Rosemary’s Baby retelling as things were slowly revealed but fortunately, I was wrong. I love being wrong like that! I’m giving this one a 3 because it felt too dragged out and kept losing my attention but it does have some very important things to say about how women’s pain is still treated in this day and age. It’s shameful, honestly, that we have to fight to be believed - if we’re ever believed at all. Anyhow, the ending was great. No complaints.

⭐⭐⭐

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