“I think of Dr. Brulov in Spellbound: ‘My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there.’”
Amanda Fox knows her neighbors very well – from watching them out her window, often with a zoom lens on her camera. She knows their comings and goings, their affairs and their names. She is the woman in the window. They really don’t know her, though, as she never steps outside of her apartment in New York City. A traumatic event has left her incapable of dealing with wide, open spaces. Her groceries are delivered to her and her physical therapist and physiatrist both visit her at home. Without a job, she spends her time helping others online with the same ailment since she used to be a therapist, playing chess and watching old movies. Then, a new family moves in with a teenage boy who stops by with a gift. Her world cracks open just a bit.
A friend of mine read The Woman in the Window and really liked it. I saw ads for it that compared it to The Girl on a Train and TheGood Girl. I enjoyed those books because it was part thriller and part mystery because you learned about the main character as the book went along, and sometimes they surprised you. I waited a few weeks until it was my turn to borrow the ebook from the library through Overdrive.
Amanda has a tenant living downstairs to help with her income and he often fixes things around the house for her. He is helping the new neighbors when she hears a scream come from their apartment. A call to the teenage boy calms her fears – until a few days later she sees a woman get stabbed in their apartment. Everyone is under suspicion to Amanda, but when the police don’t find a body or any evidence, even Amanda starts to think she may have made it up. Can she find the evidence before the killer tracks her down?
Readers who like mysteries and thrillers will enjoy this book. It is for high school age readers and older as it does address mental illness and murder. I really connected with the characters and found myself surprised a few times in the book. It was a fun book to read.
Do you have a favorite thriller book? Which one? Comment below!
