Chemical Souls by Roxana M. Rotaru

I was excited to read Roxana M. Rotaru’s upcoming novel Chemical Souls after reading and enjoying her last book, The Man Who Feels Like Home. Chemical Souls, though, is a real departure from the cheery, chatty stories of The Man Who Feels Like Home. This time, Rotaru has turned her sharp, insightful observations about people and her complex characters to write a dark and twisted obsession story.

Patrick has signed up for Chemical Souls, a dating agency that promises to introduce him to his soulmate. He begins with his intake interview,  trying his best to be honest while also keeping his actual dark past hidden. As he answers her questions, Margaret, the interviewer from Chemical Souls, seems to understand him, as well as he understands himself or maybe even better. She seems to know more about him that what he’s not saying, but his real past is much darker than he can say.

Yes, Patrick does find his match, but it doesn’t unfold as you might expect or you might guess. Actually, that’s kind of the vibe for this entire dark romance. Yes, but not like you think. The narrative asks a question, and then unravels it in an surprising way. What flaws can we  all overlook when we’re in love? What would be a dealbreaker? What if the perfect person for you had done something dark and awful in their past, could you ignore it? What if that flawed, broken person understands your secrets? Or maybe that’s a perfect match for someone with another dark past? And then… what might happen if these two people get together?

As the story unfolded, I just loved Margaret’s single-minded focus, and how even when she did awful things, they made perfect sense to her, and therefore to the reader. It felt a bit like Caroline Kepnes’ You series. Atmosphere and obsession, I mean, since the plots are wildly different, and there’s much less blood in Rotaru’s Chemical Souls. But there’s a similar vibe of twisted love and dark, ruthless obsession.

We readers are also pulled into Patrick’s romantic obsession(s). Again, his actions make perfect sense to him, and he thinks he’s making the only possible choice. This is a dark story of double obsession, told with the same attention to character detail that made The Man Who Feels Like Home so readable.

It’s hard to give a trigger warning without a spoiler, so I’ll warn readers that there’s stalking, obsession, and death in Chemical Souls, but it’s not gory at all.