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I loved it! This book has restored my faith in psychological thrillers and was a solid 5 star reading experience. It’s well-written, perfectly plotted, and riveting. I had trouble putting it down and became annoyed when life interrupted my reading �� it didn't feel like >400 pages and I could have happily read it cover to cover in one sitting.

Anna is a 38 year-old child psychologist with agoraphobia, who hasn’t left her home for over a year. Her husband left her some time ago, and took their 8 year old daughter with him, but Anna talks to them nightly. She spends the rest of her days and nights watching old black-and-white movies on TV, chatting and dispensing advice in an online forum, and spying on her neighbors, all while downing large amounts of Merlot with a concoction of prescription pills.

I loved the psychological aspect of the novel and being privy to Anna’s thoughts and actions as she struggled with depression and agoraphobia. I had enormous sympathy for her. One day, while spying on the neighbors across the street, Anna witnesses a crime, but, because of her alcohol and pill addiction, she has trouble getting the police to believe her �� that and the fact that there is zero evidence of a crime, but compelling evidence that Anna is unstable and imagining things. In fact, Anna begins to doubt herself.

One of my favorite parts of the story was Anna’s love for old black and white classic movies, such as Rear Window, Gaslight, and Stranger on a Train, etc. Did Anna really see what she claimed happened, or is she blurring the lines between reality and what she was watching on her tv screen every night? The author does a marvelous job keeping the reader guessing. And this reader had an urge to pour a glass of Merlot and watch a Hitchcock movie ;-)

There are twists along the way, all revealed at just the right time. I appreciated that the author didn’t insult the reader's intelligence by using one particular revelation (that I had already figured out) as a 'shocking twist'. I thought it was brilliant to plant the necessary clues along the way but not until the end do we see how they all fit together. And what a surprising ending it was!

This is an amazing debut, and I’m not surprised that the movie rights have already been sold, as well as foreign publication rights. It deserves all the accolades it's receiving. I'm only sorry Hitchcock isn't around to produce and direct :-)

This was a traveling sister read and we were split down the middle on this one and you know which camp I'm in :-) The review this book and others can be found on the Sister's blog:


*Many thanks to Edelweiss, the author A.J. Finn, and William Morrow publishing for a copy of the e-galley for review.