Free therapy
<p><b>A collection that shows us ourselves as we truly are</b><br><br><b>***AN IRISH TIMES 2024 DEBUT WRITER TO LOOK OUT FOR***</b><br><br><b>'A major new talent'</b> I<br><br><b>'So precise and articulate' </b>SUNDAY TIMES<br><br>Two teenage girls fixated on each other's bodies enter into a destructive competition; a woman's encounter with her ex forces her to reflect on the women's group that saved her; a couple's future is called into question after the damp expert they hire for their bathroom offers them free counselling; an older man's buried grief emerges during an altercation with a mother driving a 4×4; and over the course of a bitter winter a waitress lacks the money to fix an impacted tooth as the cracks begin to show in her precariously balanced life.<br><br><i>Free Therapy</i> takes us into the inner lives of women and men who are versed in the language of therapy, possessed with the self-knowledge needed to change their lives, but finding themselves unwilling to doing so. As her characters try and fail to connect - via sex, friendship, screens and work - Rebecca Ivory explores desire in all its forms, revealing the ways in which we posture and present, and the softness and insecurities that lie beneath.<br><br>Perfectly observed, wry and illuminated by moments of sympathy and wisdom, <i>Free Therapy</i> shows us ourselves as we truly are.<br><br><b>'Arresting and inventive' </b>SALLY ROONEY<br><br><b>'Her writing feels so fresh'</b> PANDORA SYKES</p>