Crazy Love

Allan's scene-setting is consummate, deceptively simple - her evocation of Napier of the 80s, the building and its dire straits inhabitants never falters. . . . Allan is apposite on this - how young women may find themselves forced into violent relationships just to survive. . . . If this vividly written and compelling novel has a message, it is surely that love can conquer all. It just depends on how consumed by it you want to be, and the price you're willing to pay.

Stephanie Johnson, Weekend Herald

Crazy Love is candid and uncompromising as it charts both a wild, self-destructive youth and a marriage made difficult by mental health issues. But it nowhere falls into self-pity. Rosetta Allan’s optimism, practicality and commitment are infectious. So’s her style. It’s compulsive reading.

Nicholas Reid, Reid's Reader

The first half of the story is set in the 1980s and the evocation of the era is spot-on . . . Allan is good at the undersides of relationships, such as the things we think about the other person that the other person will never know, acknowledging that parts of them will remain mysterious. . . . The ever after is neither happy nor unhappy, but readers will be satisfied that Vicki faces the future with open-eyed, if resigned, scepticism.

Paul Little, North & South

I can vouch that Allan gets the setting spot on . . . it's all exact and authentic. . . . Allan's writing crackles with energy. It's packed, pacy, smacks at your senses, edges towards a monotone just a few times. Vicki and Billy are as appealing a pair of bruised survivors as you'll meet . . . With Crazy Love, I found myself hooked to the point where I was reading big chunks without scribbling a single note. I do hope Rosetta Allan heeds my grumping and . . . and keeps writing exactly as she has here.

David Hill, The Dominion Post

Love stories come in many shapes. This one is brave and powerful, about the way love can save you but also break you, about the strengths and fragilities of a couple, and most of all about love. Partly what makes Crazy Love such an extraordinary novel is that it is an almost-memoir, with only a veneer of fiction over it, and it is a starkly confessional piece of writing. . . . Crazy Love is the study of a long relationship and its wild ride. It is raw and honest, vivid and real. Can Vicki and Billy weather financial ruin and his bipolar disorder? Can he survive at all? This is a literary book, but that doesn't mean it's not gripping. People are going to either love it or hate it, but definitely not feel indifferent. I was desperate to have someone else read it so I could have a chance to discuss it, so there is lots for book clubs to delve into.

Nicky Pellegrino, NZ Woman's Weekly

This is deeply disturbing yet utterly compelling storytelling – an unflinching account of severe mental illness and associated domestic torment. It is also – always – a record of Vicki’s unconditional love for Billy. . . . Regardless of whether you consider Crazy Love a novel, memoir, or something in between, it's triumphant; powerfully affecting, searingly honest, heartbreaking and hopeful.

Sue Orr, Newsroom

This is Rosetta Allan's third novel, an almost autobiography, and boy can she write. Crazy Love is based on the author's own marriage to a man who has bipolar disorder. . . . It's extraordinary and I'm going to find her previous novels to revel in her writing again.

Linda Thompson, Te Awamutu Courier

One of the 10 best novels of 2021.

Steve Braunias, Newsroom

Crazy Love by Rosetta Allan (Penguin 2021) was one of our fiction picks of the year, about a ‘devoted but difficult marriage’, reviewed by Stephanie Johnson. Another contributor notes: ‘For me the central question in this raw, visceral work is if love does indeed conquer all, is it worth the cost?’

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