The kind of book that has you holding your breath and squirming - an excruciatingly excellent dive into the obsessive mind. Van Straaten’s playful bending of reality, truth and memory take this book to the next level and I cannot wait to read more from her. Unhinged in all the best ways.

Review: This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten

This debut novel is a dark, unsettling and lingers in the mind long after the final page. The story follows Alice, a part-time cleaner who becomes fixated on Tom, a man she has never met but whose private world she meticulously pieces together from his home, his emails and the intimate details of his life. What begins as an unnerving obsession spirals into a harrowing exploration of self-perception, loneliness and the blurred line between fantasy and reality.

Van Straaten’s writing is immersive, capturing Alice’s inner monologue in a style that mirrors her fractured thoughts. The novel is as disturbing as it is compelling and drawing the reader into Alice’s dysmorphic view of herself and her world. Though unsettling the book evokes deep pity for Alice and making her a character impossible to forget.

With its creeping tension especially in the second hald and great storytelling the book is a gripping debut. Highly recommend it for fans of psychological fiction :)

Some people will love this book, probably fans of Baby Reindeer.

Alice cleans Tom's flat. She's never met him, but she is in love with him, obsessed with him.

The writing style took some getting used to for me. The words referring to Tom as "Him", "His" and "He" are all capitalized and my eye kept thinking it was the beginning of a new sentence. Once I had trained myself to be able to recognise it I was ok reading on. It's a story told from the viewpoint of Alice and is basically her inner thoughts for much of the book.

I wasn't too keen on the story, but that is down to me rather than the writing. It's a cleverly written book and it did keep me reading until the end. a very dark book and little bit like car crash tv, I wasn't keen but had to know what would happen. The writing is very descriptive and did make me squirm a few times. There was a poignant moment that I loved and was so pleased for Alice. I was willing that she would mend her ways, but her mental health issues won out.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars because the writing deserves it.

I enjoyed this one for it's commentary about self-esteem and how one moment in your teenage years can set in motion an insecurity for life. I also liked the writing, especially the almost biblical way in which Alice spoke about Tom. however, this didn't entirely standout to me as another in a long line of 'unhinged women' books. this trope/genre is getting very oversaturated and I don't think this book did anything in particular to make it stand-out unfortunately. that being said, I would still recommend this if you're a sucker for all kinds of weird, dark and messy women. Alice is certainly a character!

I really wanted to love this because I was getting Mona Awad / Julia Armfield vibes from the plot. But there was something about it that just didn't work for me. I still ENJOYED it, but I wanted to be consumed by it.

This is a very good time to be publishing a book like this, what with TV series’ like ‘You’ and ‘Baby Reindeer’ being very firmly set in the current cultural zeitgeist. I can struggle to read obsession sometimes as it does feel like for some authors it can be an excuse to labour over some details that don’t necessarily serve the book, just to show how mentally disturbed a protagonist can be. Like I really enjoyed the tone of voice of the character but there were points where the talks about body image just felt like a big sign saying ‘hey let me remind you again that she has no self respect, that’s why she’s doing all this messed up stuff’. I enjoyed the book, I just think there were some bits where the author committed too much time to the things I liked the least about the book.

I found this book extremely difficult to get into. A weak storyline that rambled along. It was, for me, a slow read with overly verbose prose, and a struggle to get to grips with. No build up of why Alice was so obsessed, though that could be because I missed the origin of her mindset due to lack of interest in the character.

With apologies to the author, but not a book for me or one I would recommend.

1.5*

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group.

This Immaculate Body was a story about a woman who becomes obsessed with the person she cleans for.

Alice is an unusual character, and I cant say that I warmed to her at all.

Alice has never actually met Tom but she is completely in love with him.

Author Emma van Straaten writes with intensity and very (very) descriptive. I can not say that I was hooked from page one, I did have to read a fair few pages before I started to enjoy it.

I feel that this novel is really dark, disturbingly so but a good read if you can get hooked.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for allowing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars.

Let me tell you I absolutely lapped this up. Alice is wild, I’m obsessed with Emma’s writing and quite frankly, I AM NEVER HAVING A CLEANER.

The book immediately peeks your interest because we meet Alice. Alice is in love with a man, they’re in a relationship, Alice feeds back to her Mum how they are going on dates and how loving of a partner he is BUT she has also never met him real life, spoken to him, and he has no idea who she is (this isn’t a spoiler, we get told within the first few pages). SO YEAH, WILD. The unhinged vibes are plentiful in this one guys, there’s some mysterious about Alice and her past, why she struggles to have a relationship with her sister and Mum, and as the book progresses it’s quite clear she is struggling with her mental health.

I wanted so much for Alice, if only she could see what she had going for her, potential friends, a love interest, a job she could have thrived in and just when I thought wow okay she is starting to realise that she shouldn’t be in love/stalking this man she absolutely blew me away at the end of the book 😂 (I won’t say more - you can find out for yourself). I would love a sequel to see where Alice ends up 🤞🏼👏🏼

A huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this proof copy, my first five star read of 2025!

This book was UNHINGED, a mad delusional story told from the perspective of a stalker. Alice cleans Tom's flat once a week and just knows they're destined to be together. This is not usually the kind of thing I enjoy – I don't tend to like weird books, I'm really squeamish and I can't cope when a character does something I just KNOW is going to end badly for them (I literally still cannot watch Mrs Doubtfire). But I actually really liked it! I think that's entirely down to the quality of the writing: I just love confident, polished, vivid writing so much, and this was such a treat to read, so mad and over-the-top and luscious. Alice is such a vibrantly realised character and although it was sometimes a bit overwhelming to spend a lot of time in her head, everything about this book was so skilfully done. Honestly it might have been a five-star read for me if I could have coped with it better lol.

Unfortunately this book was just far too difficult for me to get into and I really did not enjoy. The plot from page one is pretty weak and I felt like there was no build up into the story.

Oh, my goodness!!! I adored this book so much. This is very much a character-driven novel and one that is told from the perspective of Alice. It is one of those books that I think will divide readers and for me, it was just ideal for getting into the head of a character and then seeing the world through her eyes.

Alice, well what can I say about her, she is someone who doubts herself, and doesn't mix it is more that she doesn't know how to mix as she does keep herself to herself. If critical of her body and how she looks. She is a cleaner and also works in an office.

The cleaning is something that she is obsessive about, that and the person she cleans for, Tom. She knows all she can about him and her obsession with him is to the nth degree. Counting his tablets, checking his fridge, maybe pilfering the odd item that has not been used and imagining her life with him.

The author has created a character who is deeply flawed and I did feel sympathy for Alice as she navigates her life. I will say that this did not last until the end of the book, yes there is still sympathy but this then changed into something else as the actions of Alice became more and more obsessive. the author takes the reader into the psyche of Alice and her thoughts, dreams and aspirations, in doing so, she can show the reader how Alice is doing the right thing as far as she is concerned.

The story is a slower pace, but this works so well for this sort of novel, the suspense and the sense of danger and dread are gradually built up. There is a psychological side to this story as it portrays the way some women deal with mental health, society and expectations. Obviously, this is something that can also be applied to men as well, but in this book, the author focuses on women.

This was a book that I read over a couple of sittings, the first time I picked it up I read about 30%, and then when I picked it up again I could not put it down. It became more emotional and complex, and with this came more suspense and a sense of the book turning more into a thriller.

If you are looking for something a bit different, told from the viewpoint of the main character and that has a literary fiction, mystery and thriller feel to it then this is one you may be interested in. I adored it a huge amount and found it incredibly addictive, so I would definitely recommend it.

This Immaculate Body was everything I anticipated to be and yet nothing as I thought at the same time. The book follows Alice’s slow descent into obsession, something which is already well established at the start of the novel. Her fantasies of the life she can lead with Tom are detailed enough that at times you almost forget this is something she has created. It reminds you of Joe Goldberg with his latest attraction in You, you know it won’t end well but you can’t see how at first.

The ending was completely unexpected and was enough to shock you. But you don’t expect anything less from such a twisted ‘love’ story.

In This Immaculate Body, we are taken on a haunting and deeply unsettling journey through the thoughts of Alice, a cleaner obsessed with a man named Tom ( the man whose flat she cleans once a week) Even though they’ve never met, Alice becomes convinced they’re destined to be together. Trust me when I tell you that you’ll find yourself torn between sympathy for Alice’s pain and horror at her choices!

This book is not for the faint-hearted, but it’s one you won’t forget.

Alice adores Tom. She cleans his flat, makes his bed, tops up his pickle jar. She'd do anything for him. Only problem is - she hasn't actually met him yet.

With a strong voice and unreliable narrator, this novel is gripping from the first word. We are drawn deeper and deeper into Alice's inftuation with her, as yet unmet, employer. We roll in his bed together, we sip his wine, we taste his food - and ingest his bodily substances. Alice's obsession can only end one way. We know it but she doesn't. Even what she does know, she refuses to believe.

A stunning portrayal of self-delusion, self-hatred and self-harm, this is not a book for the faint-hearted. It is, however, well-worth a read.

Excellent.

this novel is so consistent in its tone and style, which is hard to do over such a long story. the gradually unravelling mysteries of the narrator's past were, in my opinion, well paced and convincing. ultimately, though, i just found this book too static to engage me. other than the narrator, there aren't any real characters, and even as she's pushed away from the object of her obsession, she doesn't ever change or learn. it's like she's stuck in one moment, but this unfortunately made for a really slow read. it's a shame, but when the narrator is this unpleasant, i think it takes a really strong plot to keep readers, and this wasn't enough for me to invest.

There seems to be a spate of novels where the protagonist is someone with deep character flaws - extreme neediness, an inflated ego alongside cripplingly low self-esteem, not ti mention the huge chip on the shoulder. This Immaculate Body is one of the darker ones.

Alice is a young woman who doesn't particularly like herself and doesn't believe others like her either. She proves this to herself by pushing people away before they do it to her - this includes her family.

Alongside this she has developed a very vivid fantasy that the man she cleans for simply needs to meet her and he will realise she is the girl of his dreams.

As the story continues you realise that this unrequited love is somewhat more disturbing and delusional than you were led to believe.

This book is dark and disturbing but believable. Emma Van Straaten has created a character in Alice that will be hard to forget. Nothing is quite as it seems throughout the book. I found it hard to put down. Another wonderful debut novel from a writer I hope to hear more of in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.

Alice cleans Tom's flat every Wednesday. Alice is in love with Tom although they have never met. Alice is totally obsessed with Tom. Sadly for me Alice is an unlikeable character that I struggled to connect with. I found it was quite a harrowing read to watch her mental health downward spiral. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an early read.

I can’t believe this is a debut in all honesty beautifully written.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this early.

Alice took a job as a cleaner when she moved to London but since deciding on an office job instead, she’s dropped all but one of her clients. Tom. Who she is in love with. She basically spends all her time constructing this elaborate fantasy for their meeting and how he will fall in love with her too. Except she’s determined to make it a reality.

This kind of felt like two stories roughly sewn together. There’s a plot line with Alice’s family, particularly her sister Cass that while it does feed into things it also feels very separate? You are also expecting something pretty big to explain why Alice is Like That but I would say the inciting event does not quite warrant her extreme behaviour. Of course there is nuance around it but she’s pretty unhinged!

I think some people will really gel with this but didn’t hit the notes I was hoping for unfortunately.