Saturday 20 October 2018

The Woman in the Window by A.J Finn: Review


‘I know what I saw'. Do you really Anna, do you. It’s just all the booze and the pill popping it is only common sense if we believe you do not in fact know what you saw. You are an agoraphobic with severe PTSD also an alcoholic and an a fervent abuser of prescription medication I’m really at a loss to take whatever you say seriously particularly something so dramatic and detailed as the murder of someone whom you don’t even know what her name is but you claim is your friend. Someone whom no one has ever seen before.

A.J Finn no doubt is an excellent writer, I totally enjoyed his writing and story line especially because this is my favorite genre so if you don’t like thrillers especially psychological ones then this book is not for you. I also liked the sucker punch surprises he kept introducing throughout the book it added a lot of flavor to the story. Although I must say there were a lot of unnecessary scenes in the book like the sex scene what was that supposed to achieve? I’ll tell you what, nothing. Plus it was over before it even started but that’s a story for another day.

My main grudge with the book however is the main character. Did any one else find her extremely annoying and insufferable, I know she went through a lot  but as an avid reader of novels and a very sympathetic one at that I felt no ounce of pity or even empathy towards her I really disliked this main character even. If that’s what Finn was going for I think he did a very good job of that but I know that’s not what he was going for. Throughout the book, you would find that she makes several poor judgments too much for a doctor even absurd for a children’s psychologist that the ending will make you question if she was indeed a children’s psychologist or it was all in her messed up head.

I think Finn was trying too hard to prove a point that common sense seemed to be removed from the book everything about the book is totally against common sense. Going by what we learned throughout the book, it  was supposed to end the first way he made it look like it was going to end and that was quite a relief for me because that was what made sense. However, I guess that’s not the point of a psychological thriller huh, it’s supposed to give you the shock effect but the shock effect is supposed to make sense and make you look stupid right? Well, this one did not. It ended up being more annoying than it was meant to be and the more you think about it you would see that the ending is surprising because it doesn’t even make sense you don’t see it coming because it shouldn’t be coming, she is a children’s psychologist for Pete’s sake how can something you know so well play you so well too well in-fact.

The ending left me wondering if I was missing something. I wondered what just happened. Is it me  or….like bad sex you know or something along those lines.

A J Finn is brilliant but I just feel that everyone should have sat down and thought this through before publishing. On the flip side the book was entertaining so it was worth the read.