The Woman in the Window is the latest thriller to try and fill the space that Gone Girl (can't believe we are still drawing comparisons to this almost 6-year-old book) and The Girl on the Train (2 years) has left empty each year. According to the back of the book, it has already been published in 36 different languages and is in development to be a major motion picture for Fox. This is A.J. Finn's first book. Its also only been out for two weeks.
Thrillers are touchy for me (I try not to read books with the potential to upset me), but when I start to hear the buzz, I can't stay away. I'm curious to see if this book will reach the expectations that the publisher seems to have placed on it. If enough people get their hands on it, I think it has a good chance.
If I have to play the comparison game, this going to please fans of The Girl on the Train. Our MC, Dr. Anna Fox, is agoraphobic, struggling with PTSD, and heavily medicated, both with prescriptions and lots of wine. This gives us our unreliable narrator.
When you read the premise, you'll probably immediately think of Rear Window, and for good reason. Even Anna enjoys Hitchcock, spending a lot of her time watching old noir films. This really adds to the unreliable nature of Anna, because she spends so much time by herself and really only sees and hears the dark stories of twisty black-and-white films. If you surround yourself with certain genres, especially if it's all you surround yourself with, it starts to bleed into your life. The good thing is that Finn never shies away from that. He really leans into the fact that this book was inspired by those films, and I admire that. He knows he didn't create this genre and that some form of this story has been told before, and that's good.
I was truly concerned that I had figured the whole thing out less than 50 pages in, but I can safely say that my biggest theory was wrong, which is always important in a thriller. That said, I did figure out some of the smaller reveals before they were, well, revealed.
I find mental illness, especially something like agoraphobia (which I have some personal experience of, though not me specifically), compelling and while some people might find the beginning of the book slow (it takes more than 100 pages for the thrills to start), I actually enjoyed learning about Anna's daily routine and the way she portrayed herself to the outside world in contrast to the way she actually lived her life (the woman is a PSYCHIATRIST who knows better than to mix meds and booze, but that doesn't really stop her). If you're bored, I'd say stick with it and you'll be pleased with how everything unravels.
Rating
I truly think there are gonna be big fans of this book, but I can't help but feel that it didn't bring anything new to the thriller genre. Still, Finn has a lot of potential for a debut author and readers who are looking for perfect read-alikes of The Girl on the Train or love Alfred Hitchcock's films, are going to be pleased.
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