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From the publisher:

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!

“Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing.” —Gillian Flynn

“Unputdownable.” —Stephen King

“A dark, twisty confection.” —Ruth Ware

“Absolutely gripping.” —Louise Penny

For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.

It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .

Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.

An Amazon Best Book of January 2018

“The rocket fuel propelling The Woman in the Window, the first stratosphere-ready mystery of 2018, is expertise. . . . Dear other books with unreliable narrators: This one will see you and raise you.” (New York Times Book Review)

“Finn’s debut lives up to the hype. . . . A riveting and mature first novel that stands out in a crowded genre.” (Library Journal [starred review])

“Next year’s ‘Gone Girl’? Perhaps. ‘The Woman in the Window’ lives up to the hype” (Washington Post)

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I’m posting the publisher’s information, including the blurbs, because they are diametrically opposed to my impressions of the book and I want to be fair. This is another of the “girl books”, a subgenre of thriller that includes a woman of dubious character, an unreliable narrator, as protagonist. This is my least favorite type of thriller. I have really enjoyed a few of them, The Wife by Alafair Burke and The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney spring immediately to mind. But I mostly hate them –  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, the book that really started this whole craze and I couldn’t even get past the first fifty pages and I tried and tried and tried. I did manage to read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins but I hated it, rather like The Woman in the Window.

This is an unlikely (it’s a debut novel) huge bestseller. My best friend loved it, and she generally has impeccable taste (but not this time.) My library patrons keep raving, even after I tell them I read the first 50 pages, then went back and read some more, the first 100 pages, and I didn’t like it. I caved to peer pressure and read the whole damn book, a couple of hours I’ll never get back. I figured out a couple of the main plot twists, which is really odd because I wasn’t even trying and I almost never figure out this stuff, but it was so obvious to me. And I hate when that happens.

So if you are a fan of the girl books, or want to read the book before the movie comes out, this is the book for you. Sadly, it was not the book for me.

4/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A. J. Flynn. William Morrow; 1st Edition edition (January 2, 2018). ISBN 978-0062678416. 448p.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2018 at 6:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.