"20 Must-Reads" —Entertainment Weekly
"Best Debuts of Winter/Spring 2020" —Library Journal
"21 Quarantine Reads from Your Favorite Authors" —Bustle
"Ten Books to Read in April" —The Washington Post
“Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020” —CrimeReads
“10 Most Anticipated Horror/Thrillers of 2020” —Bustle
“24 Most Anticipated Mysteries / Thrillers of 2020” —GoodReads
“Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half of 2020 Preview” —The Millions
“20 Most Anticipated Debuts of Early 2020” —Electric Lit
“Most Anticipated Books of 2020” —LitHub
“21 Debut Authors to Discover Now” —GoodReads
"Alma's Favorite Books for Spring 2020" —Hey Alma
"2020 Titles to Watch" —Library Journal
"Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2020" —Kirkus
"Best New Books of 2020" —Happy Magazine
"The 20 Best Books to Read This Summer" —People
**An Indie Next Pick**
"A haunting, evocative story of artistic ambition and the darkness that shadows even the brightest stars."
—Katy Hays, author of The Cloisters
"A juicy thriller."
—Entertainment Weekly
"Sun-soaked noir . . . While it does revolve around a mystery, it’s really just fiction, the kind that makes you want to turn the pages . . . Take Me Apart has frequent flashes of fine art, and many passages sparkle with Sligar’s style . . . Sligar explores the sticky territory of power dynamics between men and women, whether boss and employee, teacher and student, or husband and wife. She threads a scathing feminist critique throughout both narratives, nailing all the right talking points of the current discourse."
—Randy Rosenthal, Los Angeles Review of Books
"By turns, a West Coast art-world satire, an erotic romance and a descent into madness [with a] gratifying conclusion."
—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
"Dark and poetic. The atmosphere Sligar builds in the house where Kate works is superb, and the way Miranda’s papers are incorporated into the narrative is outstanding because they allow the dead artists to become main characters . . . A brave novel that demands to be read . . . Readers get a strong, brilliant, flawed woman that is a truly memorable character whose haunting voice permeates the narrative . . . Fast and immediate, real and relatable."
—Gabino Iglesias, Criminal Element
"Sara Sligar's debut literary mystery is blowing me away and making the quarantined hours fly by — it's nuanced and beautifully written, with shades of A.S. Byatt's Possession."
—Andrea Bartz, Bustle
"Art! Archives! Big houses! Brooding, handsome millionaires! This book has everything."
—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads
"The mysteries at the core of both Kate's and Miranda's stories — what happened to Kate to precipitate her breakdown, and was Miranda's death actually a suicide? — are what drives the tension of the book, and they'll keep you turning pages . . . [a] careful, nuanced exploration of depression and the ways in which society can use it to make a person feel powerless . . . A rich, impressive debut."
—Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed
"At the center of this dark drama is mental illness . . . Reading it is painful. Yet, these are some of the novel’s strongest pages . . . A reading experience like peeling an onion layer by layer . . . You can put this book down, just not for long."
—Don Oldenberg, USA Today
"A dark, thoughtful thriller."
—Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post
"A tale of extraordinary psychological suspense, as well as a brilliant exploration of art, illness, gender and power."
—Neil Nyren, BookTrib
"Kate and Miranda are vividly rendered, and an entire novel could easily be crafted out of Miranda's fascinating diary, letters, and other ephemera, snippets of which are sprinkled liberally throughout. Sligar delivers an intriguing mystery while tackling big themes, especially sexism and the societal restraints placed on women's bodies and minds. The results are spellbinding. A raw and sophisticated debut."
—Kirkus, starred review
"A thriller so raw and gripping, you won’t be able to put it down . . . The mystery will captivate you while the writing makes everything that much better."
—debutiful
"Take Me Apart is an ambitious, intelligent, and ridiculously readable literary thriller that takes on art, sexism, violence, and mental illness—all set against an evocatively rendered Northern Californian landscape. I've lived in the Bay Area for a decade, and though I was quite certain the book's California town was made up, I still googled "Callinas," just in case. That's how good Sara Sligar is."
—Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye Vitamin
"A haunting story about grappling with demons and a hunt for the truth . . . Sligar has masterfully crafted a story that spans a lifetime and generations all while intertwining them in incredibly tangible ways . . . With all of the nuance and slow burns, Take Me Apart definitely feels like a thriller but a subdued one that creeps in, page after page. Sligar takes the best of thriller, mystery, and romance to create a story bursting with life."
—Rachel Gonzalez, Paperback Paris
“What a clever, visceral thriller. A raw, unfiltered twist on gaslighting that challenges how society treats women. It made me sad, angry, and fired up.”
—Araminta Hall, author of Our Kind of Cruelty
"Sligar masterfully alternates between Kate’s perspective . . . and the documents Kate is finding in the disorganized piles . . . Take Me Apart is an incisive look at women in art, domestic violence, and the complexities of legacy."
—Emily Burack, Hey Alma
"A perceptive debut . . . Alternating between chapters focusing on Kate and epistolary documents by the tormented Miranda, Sligar reveals Miranda’s unraveling throughout her brilliant career as she labors with parenthood and life with a manipulative husband . . . Sligar shows off a keen ear for dialogue . . . With a cool style and fast pace, Sligar achieves a propulsive exploration of these ambitious women’s inner turbulence in response to an abusive man in each of their lives.”
—Publishers Weekly
"Take Me Apart is a stunning debut. In gorgeous prose, Sara Sligar creates a haunting and decidedly feminist literary thriller that explores mental illness, violence, and the nature of obsession. I loved this novel so much that I blew off all my responsibilities, turned off my phone, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting. Unforgettable and thought-provoking, Take Me Apart has my highest recommendation."
—Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek
"A study of two damaged and sympathetic women . . . Love story, hate story, mystery—all in one."
—Library Journal
"Sligar handles her intricately structured story's threads with delicacy in this impressive, suspenseful debut.
—Annie Bostrom, Booklist
“Take Me Apart is such a delicious novel: perfectly plotted, atmospheric, disturbing, sad—even sexy. Sara Sligar brings both the northern California coast and the personal history of a brilliant artist to vivid life. I couldn't put it down.”
—Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State
“A smart, post-modern book that takes on the complexities of gendered mental illness and trauma at an engrossing clip. With a complicated visual artist at its narrative center, Take Me Apart teases out the tensions of visibility and fame versus the hidden, unseen wounds of home and interiority, and asks the hard questions of what it means to create as a woman—create art, create life, and create yourself.”
—Caite Dolan-Leach, author of Dead Letters
"Women in art, mental illness and domestic violence are just a few of the themes touched on in this pitch-perfect thriller."
—Happy Magazine
"Sara Sligar’s obsession-worthy debut combines the penetrating insight of the best art criticism with the seductive menace of a modern Gothic romance. Take Me Apart is my favorite kind of thriller: masterfully paced and psychologically precise, with subtle twists that reveal themselves like a developing photograph."
—Layne Fargo, author of Temper
"My favorite debut crime novel of 2020 . . . just spot on about transforming life into art and who gets sacrificed — particularly women — as a result."
—Sarah Weinman, The Crime Lady
02/21/2020
Kate Aitken's life has gone off track; a journalist, she finds herself despondent and jobless after accusing a senior editor of sexual abuse. A continent away, in Callinas, CA, Theo Brand needs a curator to sort a mountain of papers left by his mother, an internationally famous photographer with her own history of sexual abuse and mental illness. The job goes to Kate, who fortunately has an aunt living in the town. Miranda Brand's death (suicide? murder?) shook the art world decades back and still tantalizes, and rude, standoffish Theo expects Kate to be confined to the first floor of a large house with her work. But her curiosity gets the better of her, and she begins to explore the house when Theo is away, just as their relationship thaws. The story advances in alternate chapters with Kate's narrative interspersed with snippets from Miranda's papers and her hidden diary, making this really a study of two damaged and sympathetic women. This creates a plotting serpentine, but it works. VERDICT Love story, hate story, mystery--all in one. For patient readers of feminist, psychological suspense fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 9/30/19.]—Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY
★ 2020-01-27
An ex-journalist falls into a churning vortex of dark secrets when she’s hired to archive a famous photographer’s personal effects.
In 2017, after a harrowing incident ruined 30-year-old Kate Aitken’s journalism career, she’s eager to leave New York for sunny California and the idyllic little hamlet of Callinas, where her sweet but nosy Aunt Louise and Uncle Frank will put her up while she archives the tangible remains of controversial photographer Miranda Brand’s life and work, a gig they hooked her up with. Miranda’s husband, Jake, a painter, has recently died, leaving their son, Theo, with a hoarder’s paradise of letters, documents, and possibly even a few of Miranda’s viscerally intimate photos, which would be worth a fortune. Kate's first meeting with the enigmatic Theo, who's recently been divorced, is tense, but Theo’s two small children, Jemima and Oscar, dull his sharp edges, and Kate soon becomes so immersed in her work that returning to Louise and Frank’s home every evening is akin to waking from a fever dream. And they're eager for details. Miranda’s death at 37 was ruled a suicide, but questions remain, and rumors, such as then 11-year-old Theo’s possible culpability, persist. Kate, bound by a nondisclosure agreement, must remain silent but wonders if Miranda might have actually been murdered. When Kate discovers Miranda’s diary, which often reads like dark poetry, she begins to feel an uneasy kinship with the artist, whose life was fractured by domestic violence, mental illness, and the inexorable demands of fame, motherhood, and the creative process. Kate’s obsessive inquiry into Miranda’s death and her growing attraction to Theo soon threaten to unravel the delicate threads of her new life and her increasingly precarious state of mind. Kate and Miranda are vividly rendered, and an entire novel could easily be crafted out of Miranda’s fascinating diary, letters, and other ephemera, snippets of which are sprinkled liberally throughout. Sligar delivers an intriguing mystery while tackling big themes, especially sexism and the societal restraints placed on women’s bodies and minds. The results are spellbinding.
A raw and sophisticated debut.
