Mrs Smith Reads Shame by Karin Alvtegen, #CBR4 Review #12
If I had read Shame by Karin Alvtegen before I read her novel Missing, I would never have read another thing by her. I hated this book and found it left a very bad taste in my mouth when I got to the end.
Shame tells the stories of two Swedish women, Maj-Britt, a morbidly obese woman who lives alone and relies on care workers to provide for all of her needs, and Monika, a well-respected doctor with no self-esteem or personal life. Each is living with the burden of an assumed responsibility for the death of a loved one, which causes them constant mental dispair and crippling shame and leads them both to life decisions which only serve to push them to reject the good things that come into their lives as they believe themselves to be wholly undeserving.
