Please Stop Trying to Leave Me

How it reads

Please Stop Trying to Leave Me is contemporary fiction (literary relationship fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is melancholy. It's quietly sad, wistful and reflective. It's a slow burn: character-driven, with a payoff that comes from accumulation rather than twists. It rewards attention and suits unhurried reading more than five-minute gaps.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are identity, love and loss and grief. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 416 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a hidden gem — known to relatively few readers.