TW: SA This book was such a disappointment for me. I absolutely loved Embers by Márai and was looking forward to reading another book by him but this on didn’t even came close to the greatness of Embers. It was just so boring and I missed his captivating way of describing people’s thoughts and emotions. I wish I Dnf it because till the end it was just a boring book but in the last pages Márai added a super unnecessary rape scene (not to mention that rape scenes are almost always unnecessary) it was so random and did nothing to the story. Felt like he just wanted to shook the reader at the end. What made me even more furious are the protagonist’s thoughts about the rape. She didn’t judge her rapist but was ashamed in front of him because she was dirty and smelled badly. Another big failure of men writing women.