Love in all its brutal forms, this is a provocative, gripping read about obsession and control that I found uncomfortable throughout but that's the point.

‘If you love someone, never let them go...’

Meet Constance. Working as a medical receptionist, living in a drab bedsit, and still reeling from the death of her mother just a few short months ago, she is desperate for something more in her life. So when she falls for the new doctor at her surgery, she is thrilled when he reveals that he shares her feelings. But when Samuel ends their affair as quickly as it started, Constance finds herself unable to move on, and quickly learns how fine of a line there is between love and obsession...

‘If I can’t have you’ takes the form of a letter from Constance to Samuel, written at the suggestion of her psychologist. That, combined with the opening chapter (which I won’t comment on except for to say that it is genuinely jaw dropping and possibly the best opening I’ve ever read) clues you in pretty quickly to the fact that our girl Constance is a bit of a weird one. Like, yeah she’s had a rough time of it in the past, but that doesn’t fully explain her behaviour - let’s just say Samuel should be glad he doesn’t own a bunny! Although to be honest Samuel is such a horror of a man that I almost wouldn’t blame her... yep, this is one of those books where the bloke is firmly in the category of being a bit of a tool, leading Constance on and then tossing her out at the drop of a hat. Which obviously plays a significant part in tipping Constance over the edge.

So yeah, Constance is definitely one of the most memorable protagonists I’ve ever read about. She is painfully vulnerable, and her growing instability combined with her complete inability to see how she is being used by Samuel made for a weirdly compulsive read. It also felt very jarring at times, as although you can recognise that Constance’s actions were not normal at times, you completely understood her reasoning due to the high quality of the writing. Definitely had to step back a few times and remind myself that doing certain things was not advisable!

Overall, this was a brilliant book that I really enjoyed. It felt to me like a very unique take on the psychological thriller genre, but this time you get a very vivid and unsettling insight into the mind of the ‘villain’ so to speak rather than reading from the POV of the one being terrorised as is the standard. And the ending was pure brilliance, completely unexpected, despite spending a lot of the book looking for clues that relate back to that bombshell of an opening... all in all, definitely one I’d recommend, and an author I would eagerly read the work of again.

Disclaimer - I was fortunate enough to be provided with an advance reading copy by the publisher and NetGalley. This has not affected my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

Finished Charlotte Levin's If I Can't Have You and it was great! I really enjoyed it. Constance moves her life from Manchester to London after her mum's death. She then forms an unhealthy attachment to a colleague, whose careless treatment pushes her into full bunny-boiler mode. The main character is believable and funny, you can't help but feel sympathy for Constance despite some of her actions. Charlotte Levin's wit kept my attention from the first page until the last. Described as Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine meets You by Caroline Kepnes, If I Can't Have You is out in July.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the arc of If I Can't have you by Charlotte Levin

Thanks Charlotte Levin for this thrilling book.

This follows a 26 year old woman whom is named Constance, she works as a doctor's receptionist. She's living life on the sidelines as she thinks and believes that everyone who loves her will eventually leave. This is written from Constance's POV in a format of a letter style in which her own psychiatrist gets her to do for the man she is obsessed with. She is obsessed with the doctor and he feels the same but she wants to settle down and he doesn't so she gets the shove as to why she discovers a deadly obsession for him which is unhealthy. It also shows you her relationships with her mum, feelings for her person she lives with at her bedsit and her friendship with the elderly gentleman who lives in an apartment close to Sam.

This was a really thrilling ride as it makes you think and wonder whats gonna happen next and how its going to escalate. I loved the rights and mysteries of this books and shows how obession can be deadly unhealthy

Definitely recommend
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

That start though! What a way to start a book.
I have a soft spots for books about obsession, and this one definitely did not disappoint. If you liked "you", you'll definitely love this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can see this book being a best seller.

Sadly I found this book hard to finish, the storyline felt confused and the characters hard to connect with. The writing style was certainly interesting but perhaps that’s another reason I struggled with it. Likened to Eleanor Oliphant by others which I loved but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

Told from a unique perspective; Constance is writing a letter to the object of her obsession as part of her recovery. From the start you know she’s damaged - you see glimpses of this throughout her infatuation with Samuel. But you don’t know just how damaged. And that revelation is revealed slowly and when you’re told just what she’s been through, life throws even more trauma her way. The only constant in her damaged life is her infatuation as this turns into obsession as she struggles with her need to be loved. And there are some people in her life that don’t see her for what she really is, just how damaged she is, they only see what they want to see in her and it’s these people that are abusive and manipulative. Some down right creepy. I lost my way a bit with Constance’s story - in the middle she comes across as the infamous bunny boiler, but the revelation of what she’s been through makes you feel more empathetic towards her. The ending is really heartbreaking but be warned as this takes the reader to some dark places.
⚠️ reader caution ⚠️
Deals with suicide and the effects afterwards.

I loved this book. It's dark, funny and absolutely compelling - it made me gasp in places, it made me cringe for the heroine, it made me laugh and it made me cry. It's definitely a page turner but there's so much more to it than that. The main character is the kind who you know will stay with you long after you've turned the last page, and the supporting cast are so real and recognisable, you feel as though they're standing in front of you.

Charlotte Levin is an incredible writer - she's taken a complex and difficult story, with a complex and difficult main character, and made it dark and twisting and at the same time funny and moving. I look forward to seeing what she does next.

We first meet Constance at the doctor's surgery where she works. It is at a meeting where they lament the passing of one of the doctors and go on to welcome a new one to replace him. Enter Samuel. Constance soon becomes infatuated with Samuel and is delighted when her advances are reflected back. But it soon becomes obvious that where her love for him is real, his is more, shall we say, just on the physical side of things... And so begins a rather sad and often cruel tale of the lengths that one woman is willing to take to get the man of her dreams. But will it all end in tears, or maybe something much worse...?
This was car-crash reading at its best. And I mean that in a completely positive way. It made me squirm in all the right places in the story as I really felt for Constance and what she was going through. And how she was taken advantage of at a time she was most vulnerable. It's written in the form of a letter from Constance to her therapist and, as such, means we are privy to her innermost thoughts, as well as her skewed ideas and ideals. Some of it is heartbreaking and harrowing stuff.
I can't say that I likes Constance but I did feel sorry for her and hated the way that she was manipulated. Yes, some was of her own making but even so... I especially loved the way she was with Edward and there was quite a lot had me in tears along the way.
All in all, a quite evocative and emotional book that held my attention nicely along the way and left me satisfied, if a little shocked at its conclusion. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I really struggled to connect to this book in any way..the Main characters were awful. The writing style is first person - written as though the main character is writing a diary entry/letter to the person she has fallen for and it was just very stilting to read...I got Eleanor oliphant vibes as in the character is very socially awkward and loses herself in drink/ parent issues however there are no redeeming features..not for me....

I just couldn't get in to this at all. I didn't like the writing or the storyline. I thought the narration was unreliable. Barely finished it.

This took a while to get into but even though it wasn’t as good as I expected it to be lols I’m glad I stuck with it, because it was an interesting, uncomfortable and quite sad story. It centres around a girl whose a receptionist at a doctors practise and she falls in love with one of the doctors – Samuel. They have an affair and whilst it’s obvious she develops more feelings for him, for him it’s just a fling not serious at all. When Sam ends it, Constance continues her obsession, smashing his car window, phoning him repeatedly, sending him weird notes, basically stalking him. It’s also all written as a letter to Sam, so it feels as though she’s an unreliable narrator because it all feels a bit weird – he doesn’t really realise that she’s stalking him either and they even sleep together a few times after they’ve ended things. Then there’s her strange relationship with her housemate, which is just deeply uncomfortable as her housemate is as obsessed with her as she is with Sam! He’s very controlling. Constance also has some past trauma surrounding the death of her mother and there was one particularly sad scene when Constance in therapy talking about her mother’s cancer etc. Despite all the weird relationships, there is a really nice relationship between Constance and this old man called Edward (which initially begins so Constance can keep stalking Sam but slowly grows into something authentic and moving). A strange book, and written in the second person was at the beginning quite alienating but after a while became more normal.

I was intrigued to read this after seeing a few good reviews but knowing nothing about the book.
One review likened it to Eleanor Oliphant and whilst I can see the similarities, it was much darker and did not have the humour and quirkiness of EO.
That's not to say it was lacking at all, it wasn't and it explores grief, love and obsession very effectively. Despite some of her actions, I couldn't help but empathise with the storyteller, Constance, who has been through such tragedy and is poorly treated by almost all the men in her life.
Not all men though, as one of the highlights is her father/daughter relationship with an eccentric elderly gentleman, who helps brings colour to her otherwise very dark existence.
A five star read, uncomfortable at times but very compelling.
Thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for my ARC.

I found it extremely hard to get into this book and just felt there was too much going on and too many characters to follow.

Reading the synopsis of If I Can't Have You, it may be that you feel you've read a version of this obsessive love before, however the author Charlotte Levin has created a story with far more depth. Because of the additional layers the read is more meaningful.

On the surface the story we have is Constance Little, a doctor's receptionist from London falls in love with a new doctor, Samuel Stevens. She showers him with love but her feelings are not reciprocated and her actions stray further than is comfortable. The thrills are in wondering how this is going to escalate.

However, beneath the surface the author has provided us with other loves such as Constance's relationship with her mother, her feelings for her co-lodger at her bedsit and her friendship with the elderly gentleman who lives in an apartment close to Samuel. These brilliant characters along with her more shadowy, yet recognisable, colleagues results in a character led novel.

This is one of those books that I fell into, and even now a few days later, continue to think about.

Highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of Constance Little. She works in a doctors surgery and when one of the doctors dies he is replaced by a young doctor who Constance is immediately attracted to. Her feelings are reciprocated but what starts off as attraction soon turns into obsession.

I am finding it difficult to explain why I love this book so much without including spoilers. This is one of my favourite tropes and it was one of the best written ones that I have read. The main character made stupid decisions but at no point did I get annoyed with how the character was written. There was so many different layers to this story and I enjoyed unraveling each one. I surprised myself how I could be so sympathetic to a character who did crazy things. Although this is a completely different story it reminded me a tiny bit of Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. I cannot wait to read more by this author.

I loved this dark, spikey tale of love and abuse and rejection. It would be doing Levin a disservice to classify this book purely as a thriller - the relationship descriptions, the darkness hinted at and the character building take this out of the ordinary.

I love following dislikeable figures on a trajectory of disaster and this novel certainly has that. Opening with a sobbing woman in a wedding dress on the tube, blood dripping down her face, this book hooks you from the start and doesn't let go until the end with no stopping for breath.

Engaging enough of a thriller to keep you reading but a bit predictable and lacked dramatic plot twists

I could not put this book down. Though terrible unlikeable, all the characters had me hooked and until right at the end, I wasn’t sure who the ‘villain’ would turn out to be. Levin keeps you hooked right until the very end.

I was a bit unsure of this book at first. I think it's because I came across it in the mystery and thrillers section and it really isn't either of those. Having said that, I did end up really enjoying it but it definitely should not be marketed as a a mystery/thriller book. I also struggled to connect with Constance as I just couldn't warm to her.

It was probably more than halfway through the book when I actually felt like I was into it. The doctor love interest was such an arrogant tool. Everyone knows someone like him and I found myself wishing that Constance would see the light and realise that he just wasn't worth her attentions.

I think the book's saving grace was Edward. I completely fell in love with his character and I found myself emotional at a couple of points in his story. Without Edward I probably would have shrugged off this book as just ok, but I really enjoyed reading about him.

Overall I have no idea how to rate this book. I was thrown off by it not being the genre I was expecting, I didn't really like any of the characters apart from dear Edward (and the descriptions of the other receptionists at the surgery were quite amusing), but I did enjoy it in the end. I probably would recommend reading it, but go into it knowing that it is women's fiction rather than a mystery/thriller.