Kitchen designer Magalie is being cheated upon and so cheats in turn, in the office and with a divorced policeman who has hired her. Her partner, Mathieu, has no idea what he wants, and the policeman Guillaume no idea how to court. So begins a story of messy relationships wrested against the odds from the detritus of failed marriages, the demands of professional lives, and the pull of the internet and its false messages of perfection. With an assiduous eye that is both clinical and sympathetic, Bismuth's elegant and highly readable novel captures the alienating nature of contemporary life and sheds light on this, our strange new world full of unrequited yearning in a sea of seeming plenty.