The Woman in the Window and More January Reads

Due to extreme weather coming, with a high probability of a damaging ice storm, I am posting now, because if the storm goes as projected,  we will be without internet for multiple days. I am just starting to read The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (January 2018). That will be this weekend's read.

My expectations for The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn were minimal at the start. It received starred reviews in Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly, so I figured it was worth a try, especially because I was eager for a "can't wait to turn the page" thriller.

I  finished the novel Wednesday morning,  in a gasp. I gasped aloud several times during  my reading, and positively shouted out loud at least twice. (Sorry, Ken, to alarm you!) If you like a carefully constructed, ingeniously concocted thriller of a wild ride, then this is the book for you. I have not read a thriller of such capacity since Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson. Forget Gone Girl or Woman on a Train.

Gasping and shouting are not what is really great about this novel.  A woman of middle age, an agoraphobic, is unable to move beyond the confines of her front and back doors due to what appears to be a prior, undisclosed trauma. Her husband and only child, a daughter, seem to live elsewhere, though the three of them keep in frequent contact by phone.

Anna drinks wine excessively and she takes lots of prescribed psychiatric medications. Her therapist visits her once a week (he doesn't know the extent of her drinking), as does her physical therapist. Aside from her online chess matches and her agoraphobic chat group, she does have an obsession--watching the neighbors of her NYC neighborhood via her windows. And this is where the entire thriller really begins.

I commend the author for developing Anna as a character so thoroughly, to the point where I felt extraordinary compassion for her--not customary in a thriller of this type. I rated this one 5 stars, for sure. At four hundred pages, I leapfrogged through it. A total page-turner. Aren't they fun?? What a rush!