The Woman In The Window by A. J. Finn

The Woman In The Window by A. J. Finn
Read by Ann Marie Lee
Published January 2018 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: my audiobook copy checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .

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 neighbors.

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.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

My Thoughts:
Finn makes it clear early on that The Woman In The Window is an updated take on Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Rear Window: a character stuck in a confined space spies on the neighbors, often using a camera to get even more intimate, witnesses a crime but can't make the police believe it happened. I was so in, right from the start. And then things started to resemble a different work and Finn started to lose me. Like Paula Hawkins' The Girl On The Train, we have an unreliable narrator who drinks too much, has a mystery in her background, sees something no one believes she's seen - and that's not the end of the similarities. I began to wonder what the point of listening on was. And then Finn pulled a Gillian Flynn Gone Girl and dropped a big reveal well before the book was done. One that I had figured out really early on in the book. C'mon Finn, give me something that I can get invested in.

Still, I sorta liked Anna, even while I wanted to slap her upside the head repeatedly (I swear, I'm not really as violent as I would appear to be from the number of times I threaten to slap a book character!). I wanted to find out what was going to happen to her and I almost began to believe the resolution Finn was steering me toward. I mean, if he was channeling Flynn, that resolution might have been the one Flynn went with. But, Finn kept reminding me that this is a book solidly based on Hitchcock movies. And still, I did not figure out where he was taking us (although in retrospect, I should have figured it out much earlier). Kudos to Finn.

And you know what? In the end, I'd have to say, despite all of that, I did enjoy this book. Who'd a thunk it? There were some interesting twists and, by god, I really wanted Anna to be ok so I had to stay to the end to watch over her.