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 neighbours.
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.
This is a totally new author for me and probably thinking about it, a new genre entirely for me too.
The reason I decided to look at this book was because it was recommended by Stephen King, in fact the book leads with a quote from him which reads “One of those rare books that really is unputdownable” and I have to say, I totally agree with this statement.
The book is not the biggest out there, but it certainly packs a lot into it’s 450’ish pages and on numerous occasions when I thought, ‘right, I know where we are going here’ another curve ball comes right at you to knock you off track again.
There was a moment towards the end of the book where I started to feel a little disappointed with how it (looked) like the book was going to end, I honestly thought it was a poor show after all the build up but then the last plot twist arrived and I was instantly back to feeling very impressed with the book and very ready to recommend it to my book loving friends.
All the characters in the book play a very important role in the story, with the exception of one character, David, the lodger, for me, I did not really see what he added to the story a lot of the time, although he was briefly very relevant to the story, his character arc could have quite easily been removed from the book without affecting the story too much.
A. J. Finn really does have a way of writing the characters so that I really felt a part of the story, so much so that at times I was literally holding my breath fearing for what may happen to Anna.
I especially liked how the chapters were set out, with each chapter being one day of the story, this worked really well and helped myself get really engrossed in what was happening.
Apparently this book is the latest of a series of books following a similar theme (such as Gone Girl or Woman on the Train) and after being that happy with this book, I will certainly be checking those out too.
Overall Rating – 4.0 / 5.0
