Not the Thrill I Was Hoping For

My latest read was actually an Audible listen.

I’ve realized recently that I’m a sucker for an English thriller featuring a 20- to 30-something woman. Also, I often like books that tell a story in two time periods. So J.P. Delaney’s The Girl Before would seem to be a match for me.

Two Londoners–Emma (then) and Jane (now)–each rent the same austere house. Each sees it as the solution to her problems. Each follows a path that leads to jeopardy. Also on that path is the same man, a man they find irresistible, a man whose appeal I find incomprehensible.

The house should be a character in this book, and it’s supposed to be, and . . . it isn’t. I couldn’t ever get a clear picture of it in my mind, and it never seemed as beautiful to me as it did to the two protagonists. And any prospective renter has to follow a ridiculously stringent set of rules that would, in the real world, turn off nearly everyone regardless of how much they liked minimalist architecture.

It wasn’t awful–I wanted to know what happened–but there was one chapter that I found effectively chilling. One.

Ron Howard’s making a movie of it. Everything about that sounds like a terrible idea.

Cross-posted on my blog.