Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - The Woman in the Window

I rather liked this book when I first read it. As someone that doesn’t read psychological thrillers often, I was surprised by all the plot twists and honestly, didn’t even realize that the narrator was unreliable. Or more accurately, I realized partway through but didn’t realize that was the word you could describe Anna Fox with.

The writing was descriptive, which I prefer, however I agree with other reviews saying this book could have been 100 pages less and still worked/ been even better.

After reading, I looked at reviews and searched up the author, and just - wow. Yeah, I do not support him at all. I know that he probably shouldn’t affect the way that I view the book, but he does. What a terrible guy.

The only character I really liked at all was Ethan, and then the end happened, and umm, nevermind. I was also pretty bothered by the narrator and her constant alcohol consumption and lying to her doctor. She’s not supposed to be having her pills with alcohol, but she keeps doing it and then lies to her doctor about it. And like another review pointed out, everyone being there for her interview with the police was really unprofessional and didn’t make any sense.

All-in-all, it was good for what it was, but nowhere near the best psychological thriller I have read/ will read. If I had known anything about the movies that the protagonist was watching, I would have 100% been able to predict the plot.

Content Warnings

itsheyfay's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

rissafizzy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

rfaab's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

keijiwolf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

ksomers's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If you like this genre this book will probably be a 5/5 for you! I liked that the plot twists had enough clues sprinkled throughout the book that helped keep suspense without giving the ending away AND without the plot twists feeling unbelievable.

I felt like the female detective and the psychiatrists actions don’t totally make sense to me. The main character was suspected of having a very serious episode of hallucinations and the psychiatrist did very little to intervene. He can’t exactly just show up on her door step and he had left multiple messages but she could have been suspected as a danger to herself or her neighbors and it didn’t seem to be taken seriously enough by the police or her psychiatrist. The police brought the neighbors into the house to talk with Anna but not the psychiatrist? Also the female officer kind of felt like she was there to exist but didn’t act as though she cared about the situation. She actually came off annoyed that this woman either witnessed a murder OR was having a psychiatric episode. The officer would need to believe one or the other but I have a hard time believing that she would think that Anna is making it up for fun? Which is how her character read which didn’t make sense to me.

I loved the film scenes being used throughout the book - it built tension and echoed some of Anna’s suspicions and fears.

I wish we saw more of Alistair deteriorating after Ethan kills his mom. we only really saw him get violent with Anna once in desperation and then Anna mentions him drinking a beer on the couch. I would have liked to see more of that through Anna’s eyes watching the house but also that’s hard because we only have her point of view so I’m not sure if there would’ve been a believable way to do more than what AJ Finn did.

Definitely would recommend this book ESPECIALLY if you’re in a reading slump! I couldn’t put it down.

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