Sweat by Emma Healey is not a comfortable read as it complicates ideas of sympathy and likeability; of power and victimhood
No let-up: Emma Healey. Photo: Charlotte Gray
It will come as no surprise that, of all the months, January has the highest number of gym sign-ups (about 12pc of new memberships). People are keen to enact their new year’s resolutions, vowing to purge the toxins of the festive period and strive towards a better, healthier lifestyle. However, if joining a gym wasn’t on your radar, perhaps reading a novel set in one is.
Emma Healey’s third book, Sweat, centres on Cassie, a personal trainer in the midst of purging herself of a toxic relationship and striving to build a better, healthier life. Her resolutions are swiftly derailed when she finds, standing in the foyer of her new gym, the very person she has been trying to escape — Liam, “man of my dreams, fire of my loins, star of my nightmares, my mentor, my shadow, my ex-boyfriend”.
