All I ever wanted was everything

Have you ever read a book and thought, what the heck kind of genre is this? I finished “Bad Mommy” by Tarryn Fisher today and am still trying to figure out wtf I just read. I’m thinking maybe psychological thriller.

Synopsis: When Fig Coxbury buys a house on West Barrett Street, it’s not because she likes the neighborhood, or even because she likes the house. It’s because everything she desires is next door: The husband, the child, and the life that belongs to someone else.

Many readers, and Tarryn Fisher herself, have described this book as having a “Single White Female” meets “Fatal Attraction” feel to it. I can agree with that. Fig Coxbury is completely certifiable. She doesn’t want to be friends with her neighbor Jolene Avery, she wants to BE Jolene. She wants her child, Mercy. And she wants her husband, Darius. Fig has convinced herself that Mercy is the reincarnation of the baby she miscarried years earlier. She buys the house next to Jolene and convinces herself that Jolene is a terrible mom. Oh, and she quickly convinces herself that Jolene doesn’t deserve her husband Darius either.

Fig believes that Jolene has the life she deserves. And she believes she and and Darius should be together, raising Mercy. Admiration and jealousy quickly turn into malice and obsession.

And don’t get me started on Darius. Just when I think he’s the HEA in this story I find out he’s the biggest douche ever. He’s a narcissistic liar with a God complex. Hell, he and Jolene may actually be perfect for each other after all. One is a sociopath and the other a psychopath. I just can’t figure out which one is which.

Jolene is just your normal woman with a child. She’s an author writing under a pseudonym for privacy. She doesn’t deserve what’s she’s been put through by Fig and Darius.

One reader describes this book as being broken into 3 parts – the sociopath, the psycopath, and the writer. I can’t come up with a better description for the 3 POV’s in this story. Tarryn, I love your weird, imaginative, unconventional, unique, and brilliant writing. 4.5 psychotic, sociopathic, narcissistic, charmingly neurotic, and delusional stars!