Book - The Woman in the Window by A.J Finn

                                               

                                               

So I've finished reading this book more than a week ago and my ideas aren't so fresh, but anyway, I'll give it a go.

This first-person psychological thriller is about Anna, a former child psychologist who had a traumatic experience in her recent past and now lives a reclusive life in a three-story house in New York City, spending her days drinking wine, watching old movies, and engaging herself in online activities such as chatting with strangers in a forum for agoraphobics, playing chess and learning French. Besides, she also spies and photographs her neighbors from her window. She developed an obsession with the Russell's, a couple with a son who moved to the house across her's.

She is alone almost all the time, except when she sees her tenant, David, who lives in her basement, and when her physiotherapist, Bina, visits every wednesday. However, Anna speaks everyday on the phone with her husband and daughter, who live elsewhere, and soon starts being visited by Ethan, the Russell's son.

One day, convinced she witnessed her neighbor's wife, who she has met before, getting stabbed in her own house, she becomes completely paranoid about it, but due to her chaotic existence and drunk behavior no one believes her, not even the police, and later then found out the woman is alive and well. 

So, is Anna mistaking reality for a scene of a movie she saw or it really did happen and the woman was someone else? 

In the beginning I found the book too slow, the description of Anna's daily life and how many bottles of wine she had been drinking was boring and nothing particularly interesting was happening, so I took longer than I usually do to finish it. Actually I was pretty close to giving up. However the story started to get really intense, and it managed to keep my interest. And when I thought it was all solved, an unexpected revelation came up and it was chilling to read the last parts. Basically, the ending part compensated the dull beginning. 
An upcoming movie based on this book is premiering this October. 

Rate: 4/5

I am reading in Portuguese for the first time in a while! Just started Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak. It seems promising so far :)