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The Lady and the Unicorn
Not yet published
Expected 7 Feb 26After fleeing the wreckage of a chaotic home life and a father's public unraveling, a young woman arrives in New York City with dreams of becoming a writer-and a desperate need to reinvent herself. But when she falls into a heady romance with an elusive man, what begins as passion quickly turns into something stranger, murkier, and harder to escape.
Set against the backdrop of dimly lit bars, fractured psyches, and the quiet ache of being young and broke in a city that doesn't care, The Lady and the Unicorn is an unflinching portrait of modern girlhood. Wry, vulnerable, and fiercely observant, it captures what it means to come of age in a time of instability-when survival means blurring the line between performance and truth, longing and self-destruction
Set against the backdrop of dimly lit bars, fractured psyches, and the quiet ache of being young and broke in a city that doesn't care, The Lady and the Unicorn is an unflinching portrait of modern girlhood. Wry, vulnerable, and fiercely observant, it captures what it means to come of age in a time of instability-when survival means blurring the line between performance and truth, longing and self-destruction
176 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication February 7, 2026
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
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December 23, 2025
I'm rating this an extra star because despite what I am about to say, the book was incredibly gripping and I finished it within hours.
"The Lady and the Unicorn" is a novel about a woman in her early twenties who is launched into a psychotic break following a brief "situationship" with a man around her age. When their relationship concludes rather suddenly, the narrator begins to hear voices and hallucinate, believing that her ex-situationship, only referred to as "He" or "Him," is sending people in black vehicles to watch her to see if she is worthy of a relationship with him. The narrator struggles with poverty and poor familial relationships throughout the novel, touching briefly on her childhood and tragedies of her home life.
I struggled at times to understand the narrator's obsession with her "situationship." Many of her reactions felt extremely inflated especially because she will only have been seeing "Him" for three weeks total by the end of it all. At one point, "He" claims a conversation that the narrator cannot remember, and she "slam[s] [her] hands against the table" in a public restaurant (Ophelie 43). Objectively, this is a bit scary coming from anyone, and I wouldn't blame "Him" from being iffy about the relationship given this behavior. A relationship can be ended at any time, and the narrator and the male interest had never had a formal conversation making things official, and the entire duration of their romance was only three weeks. There are several instances like these where the narrator exhibits concerning and disproportionate behavior in response to events, and this severely affects my ability to sympathize with her as a reader.
I am under the impression that we are supposed to believe that the narrator has very little stability, struggles financially, and is low-contact with her immediate family. However, at times I don't believe the narrator is entirely reliable in the way she perceives the world around her and relays events to readers. She claims to be neglected by her family but her aunt offers genuine care to her several times, to which the narrator often assumes some sort of ulterior motive. Perhaps I'm supposed to assume that the narrator's disorder is causing these disparities, but it isn't clear on the page what is true and what isn't, and the ambiguity only succeeds in alienating the reader. I continued to read out of intrigue, not because I cared for the narrator or her success. This is a direct result of an unsuccessful use of context to justify her behavior and my inability to understand her motives and her beliefs, which felt entirely out of touch with reality.
I wonder if the story would have been more successful if the necessary context had been provided more efficiently, allowing readers to understand and sympathize with the MC's perspective even if they couldn't relate to the experiences themselves. I don't believe most readers have the background or perspective necessary to truly understand how a three-week situationship could launch the narrator into a hallucinatory psychotic break. We would require a much larger understanding of the narrator's stressors and childhood, as well as a better understanding of WHO the narrator is to feel any sort of sympathy for her. As she stands on the page, I don't truly understand her likes or dislikes, her personal voice, her views on the world. All I see is a young woman who is impulsive, struggling, perhaps a bit disillusioned, and disproportionately affected by the (unfortunately normal but shitty) actions of a man. I can relate to the stress and frustration of being in a situationship, but even still I cannot begin to grasp exactly why the narrator's mental state is so fragile that this could have affected her so deeply, and this severely disrupts my ability to enjoy the narrative.
This doesn't mean it isn't real or interesting; it means we need more context to be able to fully "buy in." Because I could not "buy in," the narrator came across as a bit ungrateful, selfish, entitled, and impulsive. I could not understand why she wouldn't be grateful for the help of her aunt, or why she would be so impulsive with her money by eating out in NYC when she can hardly pay her rent. Why did the narrator cut off the older man? If anything, she could have used his wealth to keep herself afloat or use his connections to become more successful in the writing sphere. I truly could not understand. I desired a stronger sense of the narrator's motivation. I want to understand why she did not care about her wellbeing or stability, but she did care about "Him." Why did he have such a large impact on her? Who was he to her, truly? Not just in terms of his name or title, but what did he represent on a symbolic level?
I love stories about obsessive, deviant women, but that is because I want to truly UNDERSTAND them and see them for who they are. I want to dive deep. All in all, we need more for this to work.
Additionally, there are several unrealistic strings of dialogue that completely pulled me out of the story. For instance, the narrator slices her finger open while at work, and when her coworker says that it will be quicker to walk to the ER, this is what follows:
"True," I said, then walked out the door, squeezing my finger as tight as possible. I laughed out loud at the absurdity, walking to the ER in the middle of Manhattan with a cut finger. It was so classic. (Ophelie 52)
Who would simply reply with "true" in a situation like this? Moments like these completely exaggerated the humor in the novel, undermining the severity of what was happening and bleeding into satirical terrain, which I don't believe was intentional based on the blurb and the majority of the novel. Another example takes place on page seventy-nine, when in response to an expensive gift given to her by the older man, the narrator says, "'Oh, Mark...you shouldn't have.'" This feels very derivative of rom-com language and unnatural within the confines of the story. I simply could not "buy in" with all of these strange and somewhat lazy exchanges. On page one hundred, the author writes, "'If I was in a situationship that long, I would kill myself in front of him,' I said." This is obviously a reference to a joke that is made frequently on social media, but it feels strange and jarring in this novel. Dialogue is simply incredibly inconsistent and I could never find my footing.
I did like the line, "I wondered if the only thing they could agree on was sex" on page seventy-eight. Very pretty and original.
Finally, there is one point when the narrator is visited on page fifty-two by a doctor at her place of work in a coffee shop. He warns her to look out for dreams with water. That very night, she dreams of water, but then the entire exchange is dropped. We receive no "resolution" or meaning regarding this exchange until page one hundred and twenty-one when the doctor returns and asks the narrator if she's seen any water. The narrator claims that she has not, but then dreams of water that night. It is only THEN that we are finally given that "deeper" meaning. It seems this event is used twice as a device within the novel, but the author forgot she had already included it in the first part of the book and tried it again. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of editing here; this should have been caught.
All in all, there are several errors within the digital copy that I purchased (Ex. "...we only catched the end of it" (Ophelie 32)). Pronouns are confused in several pages. Tone is inconsistent. There is an abundance of punctuation errors. Sentences are incredibly repetitive even within themselves (Ex. "I'd always been an avid walker, so soon the confinement of the psych ward was soon getting to me." (Ophelie 174)) OxyContin is confused with Oxytocin. It also felt the author was dating her book quite a bit by using internet references. I have a ton of notes on errors similar to these, but what I've gathered from them all is that there was little to no successful editing done on the book. The author began the draft in the beginning of the year and had completed the manuscript and published it by September (according to her social media), which tells me that she simply wanted to have a book "out there" and did not perform the thoughtful editing and planning necessary for a successful debut.
The story as a concept is incredibly compelling and is what allowed me to continue reading despite frustrations with the quality. I know the piece is autofiction, which is another reason why I could not put it down. There is definitely a market for literature like this, and I strongly recommend the author write a second draft and re-attempt publication, maybe even with a traditional publisher, as there is a ton of potential that is being neglected with the book in its current state. Self-publishing is great and can be incredibly lucrative for some authors, but it can also lead to situations like this one where an author neglects many aspects of editing and delivers a manuscript that deserves a bit more time to steep and untangle itself.
Citation:
Ophelie, The Lady and the Unicorn, The Temptation Press, 2025
"The Lady and the Unicorn" is a novel about a woman in her early twenties who is launched into a psychotic break following a brief "situationship" with a man around her age. When their relationship concludes rather suddenly, the narrator begins to hear voices and hallucinate, believing that her ex-situationship, only referred to as "He" or "Him," is sending people in black vehicles to watch her to see if she is worthy of a relationship with him. The narrator struggles with poverty and poor familial relationships throughout the novel, touching briefly on her childhood and tragedies of her home life.
I struggled at times to understand the narrator's obsession with her "situationship." Many of her reactions felt extremely inflated especially because she will only have been seeing "Him" for three weeks total by the end of it all. At one point, "He" claims a conversation that the narrator cannot remember, and she "slam[s] [her] hands against the table" in a public restaurant (Ophelie 43). Objectively, this is a bit scary coming from anyone, and I wouldn't blame "Him" from being iffy about the relationship given this behavior. A relationship can be ended at any time, and the narrator and the male interest had never had a formal conversation making things official, and the entire duration of their romance was only three weeks. There are several instances like these where the narrator exhibits concerning and disproportionate behavior in response to events, and this severely affects my ability to sympathize with her as a reader.
I am under the impression that we are supposed to believe that the narrator has very little stability, struggles financially, and is low-contact with her immediate family. However, at times I don't believe the narrator is entirely reliable in the way she perceives the world around her and relays events to readers. She claims to be neglected by her family but her aunt offers genuine care to her several times, to which the narrator often assumes some sort of ulterior motive. Perhaps I'm supposed to assume that the narrator's disorder is causing these disparities, but it isn't clear on the page what is true and what isn't, and the ambiguity only succeeds in alienating the reader. I continued to read out of intrigue, not because I cared for the narrator or her success. This is a direct result of an unsuccessful use of context to justify her behavior and my inability to understand her motives and her beliefs, which felt entirely out of touch with reality.
I wonder if the story would have been more successful if the necessary context had been provided more efficiently, allowing readers to understand and sympathize with the MC's perspective even if they couldn't relate to the experiences themselves. I don't believe most readers have the background or perspective necessary to truly understand how a three-week situationship could launch the narrator into a hallucinatory psychotic break. We would require a much larger understanding of the narrator's stressors and childhood, as well as a better understanding of WHO the narrator is to feel any sort of sympathy for her. As she stands on the page, I don't truly understand her likes or dislikes, her personal voice, her views on the world. All I see is a young woman who is impulsive, struggling, perhaps a bit disillusioned, and disproportionately affected by the (unfortunately normal but shitty) actions of a man. I can relate to the stress and frustration of being in a situationship, but even still I cannot begin to grasp exactly why the narrator's mental state is so fragile that this could have affected her so deeply, and this severely disrupts my ability to enjoy the narrative.
This doesn't mean it isn't real or interesting; it means we need more context to be able to fully "buy in." Because I could not "buy in," the narrator came across as a bit ungrateful, selfish, entitled, and impulsive. I could not understand why she wouldn't be grateful for the help of her aunt, or why she would be so impulsive with her money by eating out in NYC when she can hardly pay her rent. Why did the narrator cut off the older man? If anything, she could have used his wealth to keep herself afloat or use his connections to become more successful in the writing sphere. I truly could not understand. I desired a stronger sense of the narrator's motivation. I want to understand why she did not care about her wellbeing or stability, but she did care about "Him." Why did he have such a large impact on her? Who was he to her, truly? Not just in terms of his name or title, but what did he represent on a symbolic level?
I love stories about obsessive, deviant women, but that is because I want to truly UNDERSTAND them and see them for who they are. I want to dive deep. All in all, we need more for this to work.
Additionally, there are several unrealistic strings of dialogue that completely pulled me out of the story. For instance, the narrator slices her finger open while at work, and when her coworker says that it will be quicker to walk to the ER, this is what follows:
"True," I said, then walked out the door, squeezing my finger as tight as possible. I laughed out loud at the absurdity, walking to the ER in the middle of Manhattan with a cut finger. It was so classic. (Ophelie 52)
Who would simply reply with "true" in a situation like this? Moments like these completely exaggerated the humor in the novel, undermining the severity of what was happening and bleeding into satirical terrain, which I don't believe was intentional based on the blurb and the majority of the novel. Another example takes place on page seventy-nine, when in response to an expensive gift given to her by the older man, the narrator says, "'Oh, Mark...you shouldn't have.'" This feels very derivative of rom-com language and unnatural within the confines of the story. I simply could not "buy in" with all of these strange and somewhat lazy exchanges. On page one hundred, the author writes, "'If I was in a situationship that long, I would kill myself in front of him,' I said." This is obviously a reference to a joke that is made frequently on social media, but it feels strange and jarring in this novel. Dialogue is simply incredibly inconsistent and I could never find my footing.
I did like the line, "I wondered if the only thing they could agree on was sex" on page seventy-eight. Very pretty and original.
Finally, there is one point when the narrator is visited on page fifty-two by a doctor at her place of work in a coffee shop. He warns her to look out for dreams with water. That very night, she dreams of water, but then the entire exchange is dropped. We receive no "resolution" or meaning regarding this exchange until page one hundred and twenty-one when the doctor returns and asks the narrator if she's seen any water. The narrator claims that she has not, but then dreams of water that night. It is only THEN that we are finally given that "deeper" meaning. It seems this event is used twice as a device within the novel, but the author forgot she had already included it in the first part of the book and tried it again. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of editing here; this should have been caught.
All in all, there are several errors within the digital copy that I purchased (Ex. "...we only catched the end of it" (Ophelie 32)). Pronouns are confused in several pages. Tone is inconsistent. There is an abundance of punctuation errors. Sentences are incredibly repetitive even within themselves (Ex. "I'd always been an avid walker, so soon the confinement of the psych ward was soon getting to me." (Ophelie 174)) OxyContin is confused with Oxytocin. It also felt the author was dating her book quite a bit by using internet references. I have a ton of notes on errors similar to these, but what I've gathered from them all is that there was little to no successful editing done on the book. The author began the draft in the beginning of the year and had completed the manuscript and published it by September (according to her social media), which tells me that she simply wanted to have a book "out there" and did not perform the thoughtful editing and planning necessary for a successful debut.
The story as a concept is incredibly compelling and is what allowed me to continue reading despite frustrations with the quality. I know the piece is autofiction, which is another reason why I could not put it down. There is definitely a market for literature like this, and I strongly recommend the author write a second draft and re-attempt publication, maybe even with a traditional publisher, as there is a ton of potential that is being neglected with the book in its current state. Self-publishing is great and can be incredibly lucrative for some authors, but it can also lead to situations like this one where an author neglects many aspects of editing and delivers a manuscript that deserves a bit more time to steep and untangle itself.
Citation:
Ophelie, The Lady and the Unicorn, The Temptation Press, 2025
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2026
I had a complicated relationship with this book. While I enjoyed parts of it and found the premise unique, I ultimately struggled to connect with it in the way I’d hoped.
The author uses poetic and lyrical language throughout, which I appreciated as an artistic choice. However, given the heavy subject matter (mental health crisis, financial struggles, toxic relationships, and losing oneself), this style sometimes obscures rather than illuminates the emotional weight of what the protagonist is experiencing.
What worked well was the unique framing. The main character remains unnamed until much later in the book, which gave her a universal quality. This could be anyone’s story. Similarly, “Him” (the ex-boyfriend/situationship) is kept intentionally vague and capitalized, adding to the mystique and representing how he looms large in her psyche. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between them felt painfully real: the using, the cycle of leaving and returning. While frustrating to read, it’s an honest portrayal of how messy and non-linear healing/growth can be.
I did enjoy the book in parts because it gave me genuine reactions. There were moments where I thought “Oh my gosh, no” and found myself actually communicating with the character about what she was doing. The ending and epilogue were handled uniquely, and I appreciated the author’s willingness to take risks with the narrative structure.
My biggest issue: I didn’t connect with the protagonist.
Despite having some relatable moments, I struggled to truly care about her. I felt bad for her. There were disturbing parts that evoked empathy. But that wasn’t enough to make me invested in her journey. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, but I also didn’t feel bonded to her by the end. I wasn’t rooting for her the way I wanted to be.
I think this disconnect has a lot to do with how the character was mapped out and written. She just didn’t feel like someone most readers could deeply connect with, even though elements of her story were relatable. Those relatable moments weren’t enough to build a real bond, and that’s unfortunate because this story has so much potential.
Other areas for improvement:
The poetic language, while beautiful in places, becomes too much at times and creates confusion. The time jumps are abrupt and lack smooth transitions. There were moments (particularly during text exchanges) where it wasn’t clear what was in her head versus reality.
Most noticeably, the writing style shifts dramatically from beginning to end, feeling like two different voices. This disrupts the reading experience and contributes to the difficulty in connecting with the character.
Final thoughts:
This book tackles sensitive, realistic subject matter and has a compelling core concept. It’s raw and brave in its subject matter. However, it needs a second round of editing and revision to reach its full potential. With more attention to character development, narrative consistency, and emotional resonance, this could easily be a higher-rated, more well-done book. The foundation is there. It just needs refinement.
The author uses poetic and lyrical language throughout, which I appreciated as an artistic choice. However, given the heavy subject matter (mental health crisis, financial struggles, toxic relationships, and losing oneself), this style sometimes obscures rather than illuminates the emotional weight of what the protagonist is experiencing.
What worked well was the unique framing. The main character remains unnamed until much later in the book, which gave her a universal quality. This could be anyone’s story. Similarly, “Him” (the ex-boyfriend/situationship) is kept intentionally vague and capitalized, adding to the mystique and representing how he looms large in her psyche. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between them felt painfully real: the using, the cycle of leaving and returning. While frustrating to read, it’s an honest portrayal of how messy and non-linear healing/growth can be.
I did enjoy the book in parts because it gave me genuine reactions. There were moments where I thought “Oh my gosh, no” and found myself actually communicating with the character about what she was doing. The ending and epilogue were handled uniquely, and I appreciated the author’s willingness to take risks with the narrative structure.
My biggest issue: I didn’t connect with the protagonist.
Despite having some relatable moments, I struggled to truly care about her. I felt bad for her. There were disturbing parts that evoked empathy. But that wasn’t enough to make me invested in her journey. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, but I also didn’t feel bonded to her by the end. I wasn’t rooting for her the way I wanted to be.
I think this disconnect has a lot to do with how the character was mapped out and written. She just didn’t feel like someone most readers could deeply connect with, even though elements of her story were relatable. Those relatable moments weren’t enough to build a real bond, and that’s unfortunate because this story has so much potential.
Other areas for improvement:
The poetic language, while beautiful in places, becomes too much at times and creates confusion. The time jumps are abrupt and lack smooth transitions. There were moments (particularly during text exchanges) where it wasn’t clear what was in her head versus reality.
Most noticeably, the writing style shifts dramatically from beginning to end, feeling like two different voices. This disrupts the reading experience and contributes to the difficulty in connecting with the character.
Final thoughts:
This book tackles sensitive, realistic subject matter and has a compelling core concept. It’s raw and brave in its subject matter. However, it needs a second round of editing and revision to reach its full potential. With more attention to character development, narrative consistency, and emotional resonance, this could easily be a higher-rated, more well-done book. The foundation is there. It just needs refinement.
January 16, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley for the free copy.
I’d like to get this out of the way now, because when I found this out it recontextualized what I had just read. In the Epilogue, we find out that the main character’s name is Peyton Kullander. She is not named in the rest of the book. On a hunch, I googled her name, and found out that she is Ophelie, the author. Thank you FaceBook. Because of this discovery, I went back and thought about what I had just read. How much of it is being pulled from Peyton’s own life? This book is not marketed as nonfiction, so I have to assume that there are several fictitious elements of it, but the question did sit in my mind.
Because Peyton has marketed this book as fiction, I am going to review it from that angle. The man of the book is also unnamed, and since Peyton’s name is not mentioned until literally the end, I am going to refer to these two characters as ‘Girl’ and ‘Guy.’
Girl meets Guy and they have a whirlwind relationship that is full of breaking up and getting back together again. Guy eventually drops Girl for good and is kind of dropped from the book, leaving Girl to pick up the pieces and deal with her fracturing mental health.
I’ve seen this book described as poetic, or a story for those who like The Bell Jar or Prozac Nation, but it is neither of those things. The writing is choppy and goes all over the place. Peyton can’t seem to decide what the actual story is going to be about. The blurb says it is about a romance that turns toxic, but the actual romance and relationship part is done in 40 pages. We still have a whole book to go. The main character’s spiral is over too fast and is not given time to develop, as is her recovery. And the main character herself is underdeveloped and flat. It takes over 100 pages for us to learn that she has Bipolar 2, and later on we learn that she is a pescatarian, which isn’t a lot but it’s something.
This is an important lesson for writers to learn, especially those who want to tackle subjects like mental health and trauma– having a traumatic past or struggling with mental health is not a substitute for character. Those things by themselves do not make a character interesting or well developed; there needs to be something more. Here, all we have is the traumatic past, which is explained so quickly and so off handedly that it doesn’t feel important (her dad gets shot by police and she describes it as having “daddy issues”) and the mental health problems, which are also rushed past and not given time to properly be considered. At no point does Girl ever reflect or think about her life or her choices. It all gets swept under the rug.
I think that the relationship between Girl and Guy should have been dropped, or at least not given as much time as it was. In the end, what was Guy’s purpose? Girl was probably going to have a breakdown just from everything else going on in her life, from her financial situation to her family troubles. Why was he here, and why was he given all the responsibility of causing her breakdown? He’s undeniably toxic, I want that to be clear, but he is also flat and lacks depth, and their relationship is so surface level that its impact is little more than a blip on the actual plot. Girl says she is changing herself for him, but we never see it. She gives a lot of lip service to being a feminist and not caring about relationships, but we never see that either. We don’t have time to see anything, we’re just rushing past it at breakneck speed.
If you want a girl struggling in the big city, there are so many better books to read than this one. Someone mentioned they thought people were being too mean. To be real, I think people are being too nice.
I’d like to get this out of the way now, because when I found this out it recontextualized what I had just read. In the Epilogue, we find out that the main character’s name is Peyton Kullander. She is not named in the rest of the book. On a hunch, I googled her name, and found out that she is Ophelie, the author. Thank you FaceBook. Because of this discovery, I went back and thought about what I had just read. How much of it is being pulled from Peyton’s own life? This book is not marketed as nonfiction, so I have to assume that there are several fictitious elements of it, but the question did sit in my mind.
Because Peyton has marketed this book as fiction, I am going to review it from that angle. The man of the book is also unnamed, and since Peyton’s name is not mentioned until literally the end, I am going to refer to these two characters as ‘Girl’ and ‘Guy.’
Girl meets Guy and they have a whirlwind relationship that is full of breaking up and getting back together again. Guy eventually drops Girl for good and is kind of dropped from the book, leaving Girl to pick up the pieces and deal with her fracturing mental health.
I’ve seen this book described as poetic, or a story for those who like The Bell Jar or Prozac Nation, but it is neither of those things. The writing is choppy and goes all over the place. Peyton can’t seem to decide what the actual story is going to be about. The blurb says it is about a romance that turns toxic, but the actual romance and relationship part is done in 40 pages. We still have a whole book to go. The main character’s spiral is over too fast and is not given time to develop, as is her recovery. And the main character herself is underdeveloped and flat. It takes over 100 pages for us to learn that she has Bipolar 2, and later on we learn that she is a pescatarian, which isn’t a lot but it’s something.
This is an important lesson for writers to learn, especially those who want to tackle subjects like mental health and trauma– having a traumatic past or struggling with mental health is not a substitute for character. Those things by themselves do not make a character interesting or well developed; there needs to be something more. Here, all we have is the traumatic past, which is explained so quickly and so off handedly that it doesn’t feel important (her dad gets shot by police and she describes it as having “daddy issues”) and the mental health problems, which are also rushed past and not given time to properly be considered. At no point does Girl ever reflect or think about her life or her choices. It all gets swept under the rug.
I think that the relationship between Girl and Guy should have been dropped, or at least not given as much time as it was. In the end, what was Guy’s purpose? Girl was probably going to have a breakdown just from everything else going on in her life, from her financial situation to her family troubles. Why was he here, and why was he given all the responsibility of causing her breakdown? He’s undeniably toxic, I want that to be clear, but he is also flat and lacks depth, and their relationship is so surface level that its impact is little more than a blip on the actual plot. Girl says she is changing herself for him, but we never see it. She gives a lot of lip service to being a feminist and not caring about relationships, but we never see that either. We don’t have time to see anything, we’re just rushing past it at breakneck speed.
If you want a girl struggling in the big city, there are so many better books to read than this one. Someone mentioned they thought people were being too mean. To be real, I think people are being too nice.
September 28, 2025
Welcome to the Lit-indie Files. Where I take a chance on small/indie published books and bring you the inside scoop!!
I just finished The Lady and the Unicorn by Ophelie and here are my musings.
Running to a life not away should be the mantra of any young woman looking to reinvent themselves. The trouble is when you run head first into a man who brings the heat but keeps you at arms length.
Not knowing what is real and what is in her head, who do you run to? Who can protect you from the dangers real or imagined?
Loads to unpack here. It feels like reading a book a step away from it. There was nothing to connect to. A lack of use of names kinda keeps you at arms length. It was an interesting way to tell a story and kinda worked in some spots but others… I wondered why I kept reading. You need to connect. You have to feel something to keep the pages turning and the only thing that kept me reading was finding out what was real and what was not.
As a woman who has people in her life with BP… the Psychosis parts were wild. I don’t know if this is drawn from experience or whether she researched bipolar but in my experience this isn’t the norm and the catalyst didn’t really seem like something that would set a BP person on this trajectory so that was a little unsettling for me.
The writing definitely went waywire towards the end. It felt erratic and not well reasoned but still I kept turning those pages. There was a great underlying story here. I can see it. It just needs some editing. It needs someone else to work the kinks out and smooth the story a bit.
I could have used more being in psychosis, maybe her doing things that seemed normal as she is narrating it and people were acting like she was doing something out of this world crazy and then another POV to give us the reality. Maybe her living and not knowing what is real and what is not in an unreliable narrator way rather than the way it was done here.
It was unique and different but it still needs a bit of work.
3.5 stars rounded down
June 22, 2025
That was definitely a read that I was not expecting. There were parts that seemed unnecessary and confusing to me, or that did not make sense to me altogether, honestly, but that didn’t stop me from reading the whole thing in one night on intrigue alone.
The shift from what seemed to be a normal on again off again romance to a plunge into psychosis was like being thrown into a bath of ice. It was jarring and it took me a while to figure out what was going on— I almost couldn’t keep up, not knowing what was real or fake for the longest time, making it hard to unscramble while reading— but again, the thrill of not knowing what was going to happen next kept me going.
Some of the memory sequences were not separated, sometimes beginning in the same paragraph as the present happenings, and having to go back and figure out what was going on took me out of the story at times. There were also a handful of editorial errors that made me go back and try to figure out if there was context around them or if they were just mistakes, which left me confused and lost at times.
There were a couple of times in which the main character referred to “autistic” as being an insulting thing her family called her, lumping it in with a different word that is legitimately used as a slur, and the use of “autistic” as a “bad word”— as an autistic person— offended me to the point where I almost stopped reading.
Trigger warnings for SA, suicide, stalking, mental health decline, depression
The shift from what seemed to be a normal on again off again romance to a plunge into psychosis was like being thrown into a bath of ice. It was jarring and it took me a while to figure out what was going on— I almost couldn’t keep up, not knowing what was real or fake for the longest time, making it hard to unscramble while reading— but again, the thrill of not knowing what was going to happen next kept me going.
Some of the memory sequences were not separated, sometimes beginning in the same paragraph as the present happenings, and having to go back and figure out what was going on took me out of the story at times. There were also a handful of editorial errors that made me go back and try to figure out if there was context around them or if they were just mistakes, which left me confused and lost at times.
There were a couple of times in which the main character referred to “autistic” as being an insulting thing her family called her, lumping it in with a different word that is legitimately used as a slur, and the use of “autistic” as a “bad word”— as an autistic person— offended me to the point where I almost stopped reading.
Trigger warnings for SA, suicide, stalking, mental health decline, depression
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2026
Thank you to net galley for the arc for the honest review.
This book is for the weirdos and for those of us that have spent some time in grippy sock hotels.
If Running with Scissors, Prozac Nation, Bell Jar, My Year of Rest and Relaxation were your jam…this book is for you. I love an unreliable possible unstable narrator. The book was oddly comforting to me.
The writing is a little clunky, but once you getting the nameless FMC’s world, the author’s stylistic choice beings to feel almost lyrical. Some of the descriptions are over the top, but again…that’s the narrator speaking do you. The MMC is also nameless. The entire plot is told by the FMC and you begin to understand that she may or may not be an unreliable narrator. This book is not for someone looking to read about a normal character with stable thoughts, this is for someone that likes to figure things as they go.
It’s the first novel I have read that mentions covid. Maybe those books are coming? I’ll give it to the author, the writing style wasn’t my thing at the beginning, but at the end, I couldn’t get enough of it.
This book is for the weirdos and for those of us that have spent some time in grippy sock hotels.
If Running with Scissors, Prozac Nation, Bell Jar, My Year of Rest and Relaxation were your jam…this book is for you. I love an unreliable possible unstable narrator. The book was oddly comforting to me.
The writing is a little clunky, but once you getting the nameless FMC’s world, the author’s stylistic choice beings to feel almost lyrical. Some of the descriptions are over the top, but again…that’s the narrator speaking do you. The MMC is also nameless. The entire plot is told by the FMC and you begin to understand that she may or may not be an unreliable narrator. This book is not for someone looking to read about a normal character with stable thoughts, this is for someone that likes to figure things as they go.
It’s the first novel I have read that mentions covid. Maybe those books are coming? I’ll give it to the author, the writing style wasn’t my thing at the beginning, but at the end, I couldn’t get enough of it.
January 13, 2026
If you are a fan of Herculine, this book is right up your alley. The plot was okay to follow and covered a lot of interesting topics and issues the main character has. Still, the writing itself, while poetic and full of vivid imagery, just didn't land with me. I couldn't find myself connecting to the main character nor understand the direction of the overarching plot. I think there could be something here but as it stands, this book might connect with you if you like a sort of open-ended interpretation and bare structured story.
Thank you to the author, Ophelie, and thank you Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to the author, Ophelie, and thank you Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 10, 2025
I like to step outside my usual genres from time to time, and the description of The Lady and the Unicorn sounded poetic, feminist, and a little tragic. Looking at it objectively, and not just because it isn’t something I’d normally pick, I didn't enjoy this.
The story follows an unnamed narrator who leaves her past behind to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in New York. The first half tracks her day-to-day life as she adjusts: her low-paying job, writer’s block, and relationships, intermixed with the telling of her past. It goes on like this for quite a while, and reads more like a diary or a collection of thoughts than an actual story. It felt like a lot of rambling at times and there's little to no indication of transitions between characters or scenes which made this hard to read without having to reorient yourself.
The second half is where things go completely off the rails. The long build-up of her life story and inevitable downfall from the first half now made more sense, but the abrupt shift into her downward spiral still left me feeling unprepared. You can see the writing on the wall, yet there’s no smooth transition before suddenly feeling like an entirely different story.
Without giving anything away, it makes you question what was real and what wasn’t. I don’t know enough about the mental health conditions portrayed here to comment on accuracy, but I did empathize with how difficult the struggle must be with those suffering with mental illness.
By the end, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to take away. While I can appreciate the ambition and themes the author aimed for, it didn't translate well onto paper. There are several sensitive topics covered, so I’d recommend checking trigger warnings before reading, especially regarding mental illness/mental health struggles.
I received a free copy of this book, but this review reflects my honest and unbiased opinion.
The story follows an unnamed narrator who leaves her past behind to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in New York. The first half tracks her day-to-day life as she adjusts: her low-paying job, writer’s block, and relationships, intermixed with the telling of her past. It goes on like this for quite a while, and reads more like a diary or a collection of thoughts than an actual story. It felt like a lot of rambling at times and there's little to no indication of transitions between characters or scenes which made this hard to read without having to reorient yourself.
The second half is where things go completely off the rails. The long build-up of her life story and inevitable downfall from the first half now made more sense, but the abrupt shift into her downward spiral still left me feeling unprepared. You can see the writing on the wall, yet there’s no smooth transition before suddenly feeling like an entirely different story.
Without giving anything away, it makes you question what was real and what wasn’t. I don’t know enough about the mental health conditions portrayed here to comment on accuracy, but I did empathize with how difficult the struggle must be with those suffering with mental illness.
By the end, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to take away. While I can appreciate the ambition and themes the author aimed for, it didn't translate well onto paper. There are several sensitive topics covered, so I’d recommend checking trigger warnings before reading, especially regarding mental illness/mental health struggles.
I received a free copy of this book, but this review reflects my honest and unbiased opinion.
December 8, 2025
I think it has a very enticing premise, though the novel as whole feels a bit unpolished. The prose is very mechanical, and the story line a little jagged. It has some real potential
January 17, 2026
if i say what i wanna say, i might get kicked off goodreads
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