We hope you’re enjoying our Capsule Book Club recommendations! Get in, loser, we’re going back to high school where we date the football player but secretly pine for our beloved, nerdy best friend. This month, we’re reading The Mess We Made by Megan O’Neill, which introduces us to a drama filled love triangle and asks: do you ever get a second chance at love. It’s available at The Warehouse now! (And click through for our previous installments!)
CAPSULE X THE WAREHOUSE
TW: suicidal themes and sexual assault
Love stories are one of the most addictive plots for a reason, and there’s something about viewing a story of young love through adult eyes that makes for good drama. This is what I felt the whole time reading The Mess We Made, the debut novel by Kiwi author Megan O’Neill, which looks at the love triangle-ish dynamic between siblings Josh, Quin and their friend Henry (I use the term ‘ish’ because the siblings both love Henry, in different ways, not each other; this is not a Flowers In The Attic book, to be clear).
The book splits between then (high school) and now (everybody is in their late 20s). High school is obviously not great for any of them, because that’s what high school is like, but siblings Josh and Quin are dealing with the extra layer of their mother being diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease, that both of them have a 50% of getting (I don’t remember it ever being specifically referred to as Huntington’s Disease but it fits the bill). So, there’s not only the layer of their mum getting sicker but the knowledge that they themselves might have it. Everything falls apart, hearts are broken, lives are tested and the fall-out continues 10 years later, which is when they’re all estranged from each other.
In the adult years, you know that Something Bad Happened in high school which split apart this love/friendship trio and lightly ruined Quin’s life; at 27, all of her promise is put on hold and she’s stuck in a dead-end job, in a flat she doesn’t feel at home in, sleeping with a guy she barely tolerates.
While her estranged brother still has a rage problem and the pair have barely spoken in years, Henry returns from a successful OE in London and starts walking Quin home from her hospo job, every Friday night. Slowly, the pair start unpacking their past friendship, their definite feelings for each other, and getting ever close to what it was that broke them apart.
The crux of the book is whether or not you get a second chance at love and the book brings you right back to the toxic twisted emotions of being young and heartbroken. I will say I did not love the character of Henry – the charismatic point of the love triangle, I guess? – and found him to be a bit smug and overbearing, but that might be due to a firm belief that no-one should ever date an ex-boyfriend, ever again. If you don’t have that emotional damage, then you’ll be fine!
One of the things the book did best, in my opinion, was write about the constant mental load of having a genetic disease hang above you. The way it informed both of their teenage years – retreating or acting out – was handled so beautifully, with such huge empathy for the two siblings. It also captured the late-20s malaise of feeling like you should be more on track with your life than you are, in a way that reminded me of the best parts of Sally Rooney’s classic, Normal People (along those lines, the sex scenes also have some great spark).
If you’re looking for a fast whirlwind back to the best and worst parts of being young, you will rip through this like I did.