Looker

Reviews / Votes

A short, sharp breath of air . . . Built like a thriller (I tore through it in a day), its impact comes less from grand narrative twists than a queasily forensic examination of one woman's disintegrating life and mind . . . this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do * New Statesman * A simmering sense of dread dominates this brilliant Brooklyn-set debut . . . dazzlingly creepy storytelling, reminiscent of NOTES ON A SCANDAL. Will leave you checking your curtains at night, but this is an utterly absorbing read * Grazia * Written with a precise, sinister elegance, this is a gripping portrait of one woman's descent into madness * Heat * Unsettling and compelling -- Tammy Cohen Taut, compelling and packed with memorable phrases. It sings like a perfectly tuned piano * Big Issue * [A] slick, smart novella. . . cleverly explores the porous borders between life and the imagination. A head-rush novel that explores ideas about femininity and desirability via a thriller-style plot * Metro * Sims creates a compelling narrator, who is both sympathetic and disturbing * Bookseller, Editor's Choice for July * A slim novel that has maximum drama * Red magazine * In prose that moves between lyrical and caterwauling, the poet Laura Sims has pulled off the high-wire act of making bitterness delicious * Vogue * Ephemeral fiction with a hard landing - like a window, seen in passing, that glows and goes dark * New Yorker * A sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror * Wall Street Journal * Looker is a powerful sylph of a book about creation and destruction and the permeable boundary between them * LitHub * Jealousy rears its ugly head in Sims's chilling and riveting debut. In this tightly plotted novel, Sims takes the reader fully into the mind of a woman becoming increasingly unhinged, and turns her emotionally fraught journey into a provocative tale about the dangers of coveting what belongs to another * Publishers Weekly, starred review * With an agile precision reminiscent of Lydia Davis, Laura Sims captures the obsessiveness of a woman who unravels after the collapse of her marriage. A taut, gripping portrait, all the more sinister for its elegance -- Leni Zumas, author of RED CLOCKS This intense, gripping first novel from Laura Sims shoehorns us into a gathering disquiet and sense of dread, heightened at every turn by our sympathetic understanding of her relentlessly unraveling protagonist. The precise, observant writing slips through the skin without ever calling attention to itself -- Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter and Interior Darkness A dark and stylish drama featuring a self-aware yet unstable narrator * Booklist * Sims's debut is a breathless and unrelenting portrait of one woman's unraveling -- Greer Hendricks, co-author of THE WIFE BETWEEN US By the end you'll be gasping * People * Confronting and invigorating, a fine portrait of a psyche on the edge . . . although there's plenty of room for beauty in the writing, the quick-fire structure ramps up the pace, and there is an exciting precision and perceptiveness at work * New Zealand Listener * A gripping and multilayered novel * Woman's Weekly *