Gripping Psychological thriller but does it live up to the “hype”? ⭐️⭐️⭐
What did she see?
It’s been ten long months since Anna Fox last left her home. Ten months during which she has haunted the rooms of her old New York house like a ghost, lost in her memories, too terrified to step outside.
Anna’s lifeline to the real world is her window, where she sits day after day, watching her neighbours. When the Russells move in, Anna is instantly drawn to them. A picture-perfect family of three, they are an echo of the life that was once hers.
But one evening, a frenzied scream rips across the silence, and Anna witnesses something no one was supposed to see. Now she must do everything she can to uncover the truth about what really happened. But even if she does, will anyone believe her? And can she even trust herself?
If you are a person that needs to like a protagonist to enjoy a book, this might not be for you, because Anna is a woman on a path to self destruction. Estranged from her family and suffering from acute agoraphobia, that we assume has been triggered by an unknown (to us) trauma, she is surviving on a diet of wine and prescription drugs and seems to be steadily spiralling out of control. She clearly doesn’t like herself very much and from her “ivory tower” where she watches the comings and goings of her neighbors, it’s clear she holds everyone else much with the same disdain. Put it this way, she wouldn’t be much fun at a party. And the author really wants you to know how s*** life is for Anna, as the first quarter of the book takes it's time setting the scene for her pathetic existence, to the point where I was starting to find it a bit tedious. However, devoting this length of time in the book to detailing how Anna fills her time on her own as a prisoner in her own home, does help to highlight to us how alone and vulnerable she is and you do find yourself pitying her.
And then the thing happens. The horrific event that she witnesses from her window that sets her off on another path and mercifully the story speeds up from here. The 'event' is very spooky and shocking, especially as seen through Anna's eyes.
Much like “Girl on the train” our protagonist is an unreliable witness. Knowing as we do, that she spends much of her time drunk or drugged up to the eyeballs, we find ourselves questioning her reliability and how much of what she things has happened has actually happened. That’s quite clever as you’re never sure if the events that Anna recalls are actually true.
There were a few things that stopped this being a stellar thriller for me. It was a slightly cliched whodunnit - I predicted both of the twists before they happened, although that could be because I read a lot in this genre, so there aren’t a lot of twists I haven’t encountered.
There’s a bizarre sexual encounter in the book, that added absolutely nothing to the plot or the development of the characters, that did leave you thinking, “what was the point of that??” I could have done without that.
Theres a huge amount of references to old black and white movies - Anna spends much of her drunken time in her house watching movies, and sometimes you can’t tell the movie quotes from the narration. (And most of the quotes went way over my head I’m afraid) Although that does demonstrate her confused state quite accurately.
And the the thing that annoys me the most - that moment at the end of the book when we find out “who dunnit” and that character revels in describing (before they attempt to finish their victim) why and how they’ve done everything. I understand from a narrative point of view that you need to find a way to explain to the audience what has been going on, but it just seems unlikely that any mastermind criminal would just willingly explain everything - think the end of every episode of “Columbo”!
All in all this was actually quite a solid and fast paced (once it really got going about a quarter of the way in) thriller. However I think it’s undoing is the amount of the hype surrounding it. The applauding quote on the front of the cover is from Gillian Flynn and it has plaudits from Stephen King amongst many authors. And it’s also had what I now think of as the kiss of death for any book: “it’s the next ‘Girl on the train’”. I swear if I read that comparison one more time.....! It’s not... but it’s still good in its own way.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. The Woman in the Window is published on 25th January by HarperCollins.