Eli Wilde

Two Lumps of Sugar for Mr Anxiety

Callie Anna

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Two Lumps of Sugar for Mr Anxiety had a lot of potential. Unmet potential. I've struggled with anxiety almost my whole life and was intrigued by Wilde's personification of it. But the book is boring. It moves slowly and without much point. The dialogue is all unnecessary and none of the characters are interesting. He did come through with a plot twist, but it wasn't good enough to make up for the poor writing throughout.

Skyler Hess

Thank you to the publisher, Eli Wilde, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

With such an interesting premise and a stellar cover, I was a bit disappointed with how this novel played out. 

This book had a very strong start, a mediocre middle, and an exhilarating ending. While I quite enjoyed the first few chapters, I soon realized that the focus on the character of Anxiety itself is taking a sort of "back seat" story-wise. My interest began to wane once it transitioned to the middle portion of the story. While Anxiety (in the form of Aftab) is prevalent throughout the novel, it feels as if there were too many digs at the cleanliness in India and how society functions there. There is so much that you can do with the intriguing concept of anxiety, yet I feel as if the plot lost focus halfway through. Why were there so many discussions of poop?? While India is considered a developing country, the descriptions throughout sounded outright insulting. There could have been so many better ways to have this set in India while keeping it in line with the plot. However, this book failed to do so in a successful way.

As I said earlier, I quite liked the beginning and end of this novel. The first few chapters are written quite well and successfully puts me on edge. It really puts into perspective how anxiety can warp how someone perceives their thoughts and their reality. Had Wilde written the entirety of the book like the first few chapters, I believe that I would have liked it more. The twist at the end was great, and something that I was not expecting. However, beyond this, there is not much else that I liked, as it was hard to hold my interest. Maybe I am just not the intended audience.