Non-binary author Lucas Rijneveld's controversial novel about a pedophile who grooms a 14-year-old girl makes critics 'sick' – but they still consider the International Booker Prize winner a literary talent

A highly controversial new work of fiction by a Dutch author who grew up on a farm has repelled his readers while simultaneously cementing the writer's place in the literary canon.

My Heavenly Favorite by 32-year-old Lucas Rijneveld tells the horrific story of a 49-year-old veterinarian and father of two children who falls in love with a troubled 14-year-old girl.

The novel explores how the pedophile grooms his teenage victim, while telling the story from his perspective.

Described by one critic as a 'modern Lolita', the confrontational novel is described as 'sickening' in its content – while also possessing 'hideous power'. Readers are warned: “Read it and squirm.”

It is the second novel by Rijneveld, who won the International Booker Prize in 2020 for his debut novel The Discomfort of Evening (published under his previous name, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, before coming out as non-binary).

Critics have praised My Heavenly Favorite as a disturbing yet brilliant work of literature set in a small farming community in the Netherlands – a backdrop that reflects the author's own upbringing.

The teenage girl in the care of the abuser comes from a religious family and had a strict upbringing. Abandoned by her mother and losing her older brother in childhood, she has a secret obsession with male genitalia and longs for a penis.

In a bizarre twist, as the pedophile grooms his victim, he plays on her secret desire by offering her a severed otter penis – which she hides in her bedroom.

Rijneveld was born female but now uses he/him pronouns after first coming out as non-binary in 2020

My Heavenly Favorite follows the twisted love and obsession that a father of two develops for a teenage girl

As the characters begin to develop, readers also learn that the girl believes she can talk to Hitler and Stalin, and suffers from a kind of psychosis that makes her believe she has been transformed into the second plane that hit the World on 9/11 Trade Center hit.

The novel is written from the perspective of the abuser, who narrates in the second person as he talks to his victim, and uses explicit metaphors from his experiences as a veterinarian to describe his “love.”

The Time reports that one line reads, “You lay like a broken calf in the nursery of my degenerate desires” and describes her as having “udder-soft skin.”

In one particularly disturbing scene, he rapes his victim in the back of his van on a memory foam mattress he bought, surrounded by empty McDonald's boxes.

The TelegraphLuke Kennard describes the narrator as “a classic narcissist” who manipulates his victim as he grabs her in his clutches.

He praises the novel for doing a “fantastic job” of portraying obsession and infatuation as “a kind of disease.”

Meanwhile, The GuardianSandra Newmain praises My Heavenly Favorite for portraying “the misery and desperation of sexual violence with more fidelity than any other author I have read.”

In this twisted story about a morbid crush, there seem to be some parallels with Rijneveld's first novel – and even with his own upbringing.

In The Discomfort of Evening, the main character is a young girl named Jas, who has also lost her older brother in a skiing accident.

Rijneveld himself grew up mourning his older brother, who was killed at the age of 12 when he was hit by a bus on his way to school, when the author was just three years old.

Speaking about his debut novel, Rijneveld said it was the talk of the town in his rural community after he was hailed as a rising star in the Dutch literary world. However, in 2020 he told the Guardian: 'My family are too scared to read it.'

He later added, “I hope my parents will read it one day and be proud of it; that they will understand that it is a novel, and that it is not all about them. But it's probably too early.'

After her brother dies, the main character Jas tries to keep her family together and ensure that the bloodline continues. She keeps two toads in a container under her bed and encourages them to mate – hoping her parents will follow suit.

Another parallel in Rijneveld's novel, which may have been inspired by his own upbringing, is religion.

“I had a very strong belief in God and was convinced he lived in the attic,” he told the Guardian.

In another interview with Dazedhe said, “There's definitely an overlap in my own story and the story in the novel,” referring to The Discomfort of Evening.

He also spoke about gender identity when he was a child, saying he had always been more “boyish.”

As a younger child, his gender identity was never an issue among his peers, but he recalled being questioned about his gender by two girls when he reached high school.

“After that, I knew that if I acted more girlish, I wouldn't get bullied,” he said.

At the time of the 2020 interview, Rijneveld used their pronouns and revealed that they were unsure if a full gender reassignment process was the right path.

He has since dropped his first name, Marieke, and is now called Lucas Rijneveld, using the pronouns he/him.