There’s dark, and then there is this book! Very readable and gripping, but without a single sympathetic character and with a very disturbing story-line, this won’t be to eberyone’s taste. Will definitely keep an eye out for other books by this author.

A really different read.
The main characters in this book are really unlikeable people with major issues. Merry, Sam and Frank are hiding so much from each - but they keep you wanting to read more and find out where their stories are going.
Lives that appear perfect so often aren't.

Merry and Sam move from America to Sweden to start a new life with their baby Connor in a house Sam has inherited from an aunt. The house is very rural and located in beautiful surroundings. Merry finds that her life becomes increasingly isolated and this has a negative effect on her relationship with both her husband and new child. An old friend arrives from to stay from America and the strain increases and reaches a devastating climax that will affect them all for the rest of their lives.
Some parts of the book are of a difficult nature but are dealt with sensitively,. There are all sorts of elements at play which make it slightly unusual.

American couple Sam and Merry move to a house in the Swedish countryside to start a new life. Fired from his previous job in New York, and with the arrival of baby Conor, Sam is trying to make amends. But old habits die hard.

When Merry's closest friend Frank comes to visit, she realises all is not as it seems. Frank witnesses Merry doing things that others, who know her less well, wouldn't notice. Events take a tragic turn and it becomes apparent that everyone has a secret to hide - some of which are about to be discovered.

This is the first novel by author Michelle Sacks and what a fine book it is too! It's excellently written; so eloquent and flowing. It's unsettling, tense and foreboding. None of the characters have any redeeming qualities which, in my opinion, works extremely well. I felt vindicated in my loathing; proof that a dysfunctional childhood can, and does, lead to an even greater dysfunctional adulthood.

The story is emotionally charged and won't be for everyone. I've had time to think and my own conclusion is that it's an uncomfortable read. I appreciated it for it's bleakness; the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach; knowing that whatever happened, it would be disconcerting.

Overall, it was a really good read. I felt it lacked the final killer twist at the end, but for a debut novel I was more than pleasantly surprised.

* My thanks to Michelle Sacks, NetGalley and HQ for providing me with a copy of this book.

This is a dark, mysterious, complicated story that nevertheless draws you into the depths of it's black heart. Full of complicated emotions, it is well written, descriptive and I enjoyed it.

A good dark thriller with a well executed ending. A must read story of lies, jealousy and evilness.
I really enjoyed this book, reading from different points of view. Sam, Merry and frank, each characters give the reader a glimpse into their own views of their mixed upped world. Sam and Merry live in Sweden, moved from New York to a beautiful country, so beautifully explained I now want to go. Frank is Merry's best friend and she comes to visits after a year apart. The friendship is complicated and not a very good one, without given away anything more you really need to read the book to get a better idea on just how complicated it is.
The plot is truly wicked, it takes you away from the norm and when you finish, you are relived thats this is not your world.

Merry and her husband live in Manhattan life is fast and complicated then they to the Swedish countryside life slows down. Merry has time to build a home and look after her baby and her husband. They are happy with this life until an old friend from New York stays with them. Secrets start to appear and then their new life starts to change.

Merry, Sam and their baby, Connor. A perfect little family in the perfect little setting.

Sam who has the perfect little wife, Merry bakes blueberry pies, cooks well, cleans and sees to the garden.

The Mother who loves and adores her baby. Sam who wanted nothing else but to have a homely wife and a child of his own in the most idyllic of settings.

They have it all.

But is Merry all that she appears to be?
Then along comes Frank, she is a long standing friend of Merry's from her past. They used to be like sisters.

The plot thickens really well, the characters are well developed and driven.
Easy story to follow at the same time keeps you on your toes.

The ending was most unusual and something that I would have have guessed in a million years.

My thanks to HQ for my early copy and Net Galley

I enjoyed the authors style of writing. The book had a Gone Girl feel to the first half of the book but after that it went downhill quickly. I liked how dark the characters were but they didn't seem fully fleshed out and I don't feel anything from reading this story. It wasn't thrilling, it wasn't psychological it was a mess.

I absolutely disliked every single character in the book (except the baby, Conor). I felt a sense of melancholy pervading through every word - and struggled to read it. There were also significant formatting errors which made it difficult to read. 2* from me.

Merry and Sam have it all. A perfect home, a perfect baby (Conor) and a perfect marriage. But dig beneath the surface and are things as perfect as they seem? ......

I loved this book which was full of flawed, despicable characters and a compulsive, uncomfortably storyline.


Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.

A complex story of motherhood,marriage and life long friendship.
Couldn't relate to any of the characters who were exceedingly selfish.

This story centres on Merry and her husband Sam. Merry is a new mum to baby Conor. Motherhood does not come easily to Merry. They have recently moved to Sweden. Her childhood best friend Frank arrives to stay and Merry is determined to show her how perfect her life is.

I am really on the fence with this book. I cannot remember reading a book were the only likeable character was the baby. The story had something as I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened. I would describe this story as quite dark so it would have been nice to have a few lighter scenes to break it up a bit.

Where to begin with this book!? The writing of this psychological thriller is beautiful, poetic even and it gripped me from the first page. The style can take a bit of used to compared to conventional prose but you soon slip into it easily enough. I didn't like a single one of the characters. Not one of them was likeable but I think that was the point. That didn't make them any less fascinating though - each one was complex with many, many layers for us to unravel which made the book even more thrilling. I'd even say that a huge part of the book itself is trying to work out who is more twisted! Thus, I enjoyed reading from the three characters points of view and diving into their brains a little. I especially adored the setting of Sweden, even though this turned from somewhere idyllic to somewhere quite sinister.

It's worth mentioning that this book contains subjects that can be very distressing for some people. I consider myself to have a fairly thick skin but even I was left feeling quite unsettled upon reading certain parts.

I would most definitely recommend You Were Made for This for those who are fans of domestic thrillers. I raced through it in less than 24 hours.

Huge thanks to Net Gallery for my ARC of this book.

I would like to thank HQ and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘You Were Made For This’ written by Michelle Sacks in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Merry, husband Sam and their baby Conor are living an idyllic life deep in the forests in Sweden. They give the appearance of being happy but Merry has no maternal instinct and wants to harm the baby and Sam controls everything she does. Merry’s childhood friend, Frank, comes to visit and very soon the cracks in the relationship start to appear showing that everything isn’t quite how it seems on the surface.
This novel, though difficult to read at times, was intense and very involved. I thought Sam was quite unpleasant in the way he was controlling Merry and turning her into a domestic drudge, and I wanted to shake Merry for being submissive to Sam and for deliberately caus-ing harm to their baby and abandoning him whenever Sam was away. The complex relation-ship between Merry and Frank was tangled and it wasn’t until towards the end of the story that the characters became clearer.
Michelle Sacks has written a deep and original psychological thriller with an interesting and strange, though appropriate, ending which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Wow. This book guys! We've all been there. We get presented with a new book that will give you that Gone Girl feeling all over again. Oh joy we exclaim! We wait with baited breath for it to release, one click purchase soon as it drops, and settle in for what we hope will be hours of gasps, twists, shouts of No Way Did I See That Coming! Only to sadly discover the book was nothing more than an overly hyped generic third cousin twice removed Gone Girl knockoff. Well, you can rest assured and one click as soon as possible because You Were Made For This isn't a generic knockoff... it's the real deal! It left me questioning more than once as to who was telling the truth, or who was just telling their truth. The husband was a character I loved to hate and the wife bounced between oh I feel terrible for her, too omg how did this woman ever become a mother?! And the "BFF".... good Lord! Well, as the saying goes with friends like that... BUT! Which woman is truly the worst in the friendship?? Even after finishing the book I'm still thinking about Merry and Frank. Do yourself the favor of reading this one, you will not regret it!

You Were Made For This by Michelle Sacks a thrilling four-star read. This was a difficult one to rate as the author did a great job of getting you to feel a connection with the characters in the way that she writes, you get sucked in and start to see yourself everyone’s darker sides, as we all know that no matter how idyllic life seems on the surface there are things bubbling under the surface that could ruin that life. This is such a good phycological thriller that it does suck you in and you become part of the story, seeing things unfold and clues dropped but will you figure it out before it’s too late? Be warned this is more emotional than you may expect from this type of book.

Well, the story drew me in and I completed the book very quickly and did enjoy it, despite a decided lack of punctuation which sometimes meant having to re-read sentences. Maybe that's just me, I don't know! I found all the characters to be thoroughly unlikable but it was a very interesting tale and well written. I found the ending to be a bit creepy though. Recommended.

You were made for this is a domestic horror story in the style of Michael Haneke. Merry and Sam have moved from the urban chaos of New York to the bucolic idyll of rural Sweden. The sun is shining. Vegetables grow in the garden. Loaves are baked. They have a beautiful baby boy. In the background is creeping nationalism, and old-fashioned patriarchy.
The book is told from three points of view.
Sam is a vile misogynist, with a long history of infidelity. All the women he has known have been a disappointment to him. He wants to keep Merry in a gilded cage, being a domestic goddess, and having babies.
Merry is living a lie. She pretends to be the perfect mother, but when Sam is out she binge-watches reality shows on her laptop. She leaves to baby to cry, and worse besides This book bravely explores the life of a mother who does not love her baby.
Frank (short for Frances) is the interloper. The cuckoo in the nest. She is Merry's oldest friend, and has invited herself to stay. To say their friendship is unhealthy is an understatement.
All three of them have been defined by a dysfunctional childhood. Whether any of them should know each other at all is questionable. Be prepared: a really bad thing happens in this book. The fallout from this event, and the why of it, is what makes this novel so gripping.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Having read the blurb, I was intrigued and very keen to read this novel.
This is the story of Merry and Sam whose perfect life in Sweden is disrupted by the arrival of Merry's childhood friend, Frank . As the complex lives of all three characters begin to unravel the story develops at an alarming pace.
This is an excellent book. The first few chapters are spent setting the background to Merry's idyllic life and can seem a little slow but this soon changes after the arrival of Frank!
Highly recommended. .