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challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Murder, Gaslighting
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
crazy plot twists
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Grief, Car accident, Abandonment, Alcohol
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Car accident, Murder
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Car accident, Alcohol
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Gaslighting
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Grief, Stalking
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Sexual content
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
OMG wow…. That’s all I can say. Amazing Hitchcock-esque psychological thriller that will keep you guessing and doubting the whole time. You know it’s gonna be good when, just as you think everything is getting wrapped up, you see there’s still 3 hours of the book left!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Car accident, Gaslighting
Moderate: Cursing, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Infidelity, Stalking
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Character - 3
Besides Anna, the characters aren't too fleshed out. They all have one, maybe two, traits that define them and that's all they are. Anna in a way is also just four characteristics: a psychologist, a mother, an agoraphobe, and an addict to drugs and alcohol. Even though we live in her head, by the end of the book I feel like we barely know her. She is also an unreliable narrator because of her drug and alcohol abuse. There are flashes of her being a woman with a strong sense of wanting to help people (it's what drove her to brave the outside world to try and help Jane/Katie) , but other than that one time it drove her to strong action, she mostly just uses that desire to be an armchair psychologist on an online forum and trying to be there for Ethan when he visits. I was also a bit weirded out by how Anna would evaluate the physique of the characters that she came in close contact with.
The other characters are established as almost a single characteristic. Ed: ex-husband, Olivia: daughter, Dr. Fielding: therapist, Bina: close associate, David: the hot tenant, Alistair Russell: abusive father, Jane/Katie: a blank slate, "Jane": mother, Ethan: a "nice kid", Detective Little: a compassionate cop, Detective Norelli: the "bad" cop.
Atmosphere - 4
The "world" of this book is limited because of the Anna's agoraphobia, so we get a limited impression of where exactly we are in time technology-wise. The house Anna lives in is dark and closed in. It reflects how Anna feels about herself: trapped, lonely, abandoned, depressed. (The end with her walking out in to the garden on the roof, into the sunlight, is supposed to portray her finally taking her first steps out in to the light of the outside world, and in turn showing she's starting to feel lighter and more free herself.) Her only interaction with the outside world comes through her camera lens as she watches her neighbors up and down the street through the windows, or the people who come in to her house.
It was only when I was two-thirds of the way through the book when the first, and only, time I felt the creepy chills went up my spine. (This was when Anna received the e-mail with a picture of her sleeping face attached.) It touched on a personal fear of mine that makes me double-check that all the doors are locked before I go to bed at night. Unfortunately, the same tension or suspense didn't translate to the rest of the book. I can understand the beginning of the book being more mysterious and closer to a who-done-it, but after (Jane/Katie's murder and Anna's trip to the hospital) I was looking for a bit more tension or suspense.
Writing Style - 5
If I could describe it in one word, I'd say inconsistent. It's simplistic at times, but at others you can tell that it's a scene the author really loved and wanted to write so it feels more fleshed out and engaging (mainly Anna's struggles to survive after the car drives off the cliff, and Anna's depression and suicidal thoughts after Detective Norelli tells her to her face that the detectives know her husband and daughter are actually dead) . I don't mind simplistic writing, but I think it was the author's inability to write consistently that made me not like the style.
Plot - 3
A quick summary: a house-bound woman who watches her neighbors through her windows, witnesses something late at night in her neighbor's house across the street. Since she could be called the neighborhood "crazy lady," the police and all the people who talk to her don't believe her. She doesn't even believe herself because of her alcohol and drug abuse. Her strong sense of wanting to help someone has her push forward through her doubts until the danger invades the one place she feels safe: her home.
It sounds interesting when put that way, and it still is when reading, but I just didn't get the emotional satisfaction of feeling like I've read a good book when I was done. They mystery and the clues are laid out well, and it's fun as the reader to follow along and see how Anna is able to make the logical leaps to put one and one together. That never felt stiff or forced, but instead seemed to follow naturally. I can appreciate that. Author's trying to cram in a leap of logic to make their plot make sense is one way to pull me out of a story. Unfortunately, it's the ending that fell flat for me.
The ending just gets dumped on you. Since Anna is an unreliable narrator because of her limited involvement with the world and people outside her house, the drop that Ethan's actually a creepy psychopath that's been sneaking in to her house at night to watch her sleep is jarring. Unfortunately, I don't think the way he is portrayed reads to me as psychopathic traits. As someone who is interested in true crime, and has seen police interviews with psychopaths or people with psychopathic traits, Ethan's mannerism reads more childish than cold and logical. If he was still trying to play his character of "nice boy" then this would make sense, but he's come to her at night with the intent to kill her, and that should be his cool logic talking so there's no need for the facade anymore. As he's chasing her through the house, I didn't find the situation tense or nerve-wracking. Instead I found it a bit comical. The fact is she's been able to get out of the house while under stress: needing to check on Jane/Katie after she was stabbed, and following "Jane" down to the coffee shop, shows she might be able to get out of the house while under extreme circumstances. In fact, she does, but she goes up on the roof instead of out the front door.
The author does hint that someone's been in the house, even after Anna's blocked of the basement, but all of the hints are electronic-based so I was leaning more towards a stalker who snuck in to her house once to take a picture of her, but who mainly focuses on hacking. I supported this with the thought that the new person Anna's been counseling is also online, who I assumed was the same person who was stalking her. I think this part of the plot could have been used to add more tension in the buildup, especially after the picture was e-mailed. A creak of the steps. Is it the house settling, or is the person back? She places something down or sets something up that the reader can clearly remember, but Anna remains unsure of. Did someone come in to the house and mess with her stuff, or did she forget what she was doing because of alcohol or drugs?
There are times when things happen abruptly so that conflict can enter the plot. David sharing his history (which any good landlord would ask about before allowing someone to sleep in their basement attached to their house) and then sleeping with Anna made things awkward and gave her ammunition when the police were over after the e-mailed picture. Ethan's father gets drunk and comes over to Anna's house and attempts to strangle her, but now she can't call the cops because the cops think she's crazy anyway so she can't really trust them. All of these make sense to move the plot along, but they seemed like sudden turns in the plot to force it along instead of natural.)
Intrigue - 7
Did the plot of the story interest me enough that I was able to finish the book? Yes. Did the plot grip me in a way that made me feel like I couldn't put the book down, or I got completely lost in the story? No.
The mystery of the story does stay engaging throughout, but if I'm reading a thriller I'm also looking for some kind of tension involved in the atmosphere of the book as well, and I barely got that. The characters weren't enough to grab my attention and make me interested as well. As I was reading through, I constantly found myself checking to see how far along I was because I was hoping to hit the next quarter mark to get to the next thing that would make the plot move along. The last quarter of the book was probably the most engaged I was with how the actual story was playing out (beyond the second half of Anna's backstory where we see her trying to survive after the car accident) .
Logic - 6
The clues that are scattered throughout the book make sense. The reactions of the characters when they're confronted with them also makes sense. Overall, the book makes sense, until the climactic end. It could have been done so much better, or different. I've seen that the author can write scenes that evoke feeling. It happens in other sections of the book. It just didn't happen at the end of the book. My brain made a hard stop at the plot twist. It's not that the twist seemed overly unnatural, it was just so sudden without any hint of build up to it even in passing from other sections of the book, that it kicked me right out of the situation.
Another way the plot could have gone, leaving room to raise tension but also allow Anna and the reader to get more clues to what's going on could have been: after Ethan leaves Anna to convince his parents to turn themselves in to the police he instead kills them in the night and then comes over to Anna the following day and say they've left town and left him (he does have an open invitation to live in her basement after all). This would allow Ethan the fun of continuing to watch Anna as well. This would give opportunities for Anna to either gather more clues or for Ethan's facade to slip and her and the reader to start noticing something's just not right.)
I could see the end of the story being written much different, in a way that would have been much more engaging for myself, so in that sense I can't suspend my own disbelief and find the actual ending of the story engaging or enjoyable.
Enjoyment - 3
After sleeping on the book before trying to organize my thoughts, I woke up annoyed. Annoyed at the limited characterization and my inability to feel connected with any of the characters. Anna's agoraphobia limits her understanding of the people and places around her, which in turn limits the reader. Annoyed at the lack of tension or suspense. I was hoping for a suspense cat-and-mouse reveal at the end, but ended up with (a child with a letter opener) .
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail