Rachel Starr is the girl with the bright red lipstick and glasses. She's a reference librarian from Brooklyn. For weeks, she's been noticing the same melancholy guy sitting at her bus stop. Finally mustering up some courage, Rachel introduces herself and the two have unquestionable chemistry. Thomas Barrett is smart and funny and handsome. But there's one tiny problem: he's dead.
Thomas is stuck in a surreal limbo where he is unable to cross over to the afterlife. As per the bureaucracy, he has to complete a 90-day stint on earth under the condition that he is not to get involved with any member of the living—lest he incur "regrets." When Thomas and Rachel break this rule, they unleash a torrent of consequences.
The Regrets is a surreal love story and unlike anything I have read. It is quirky and weird, but it works. Bonnaffons comment on dying—with or without regrets—is dark, but light and playful.
The writing is beautiful and haunting, Bonnaffons is also surprisingly witty. Sex was paramount to the story, not just the act itself, but that it is fragile and intimate. It is also a form of connection.
There are some incredibly long passages with little to no dialogue, and sometimes this was difficult to slog through. I did feel that the first half was stronger and then my attention started to wane.
A love affair between the living and the dead, The Regrets is a novel about life, death, regrets, and the power of love.
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AMY BONNAFFONS' work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Kenyon Review. She holds an MFA from NYU and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Georgia.
Bonnaffons currently lives in Athens, Georgia.
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