Monday, March 5, 2018

The Woman in the Window

Title: The Woman in the Window
Author: A.J. Finn
Published: January 2nd 2018 by William Morrow
Format: Hardcover, 427 pages
Genre: Psychological Thriler

Can a character be described as an unreliable narrator if a situation makes them appear unstable, but in reality, they are the only one that knows the truth? Anna Fox, agoraphobic, thirty-eight and a child psychologist, has not left her Manhattan home in almost a year. Other than drinking too much wine, taking too many pills, counseling others in an online group, playing chess, and spying on her neighbors through her Nikon, she spends her time watching old noir classics.

Anna and her husband are separated and their 8-year-old daughter is with him. They speak daily and though she begs them to return, she knows that they cannot. It is up to this point that the book comes across as rather mundane and I could not understand all the hype. It was not until I read a bit farther, and the Russell family took center stage, that this book grabbed me.

Yet, as this novel slowly reveals its ghosts, not all is what it appears. What begins with a scream in the night ends with Anna’s life laid bare and those that thought they knew Anna are left with regrets and understanding of both the woman and what caused her husband and daughter to leave.

Could the reader have guessed Anna’s truth? I guess it is possible since some parts lend themselves to certain paths, but to say that they saw the ending in the first couple of chapters, I doubt that very much. Like the movie, “The Sixth Sense”, the reader will have to go back to the beginning and reread to see all the clues that were left and all that was missed because they thought they knew where this book was taking them. They were wrong, so very very wrong.

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