Originally posted to I Should Read That

I feel like I rarely read thrillers, and this is something I’d like to change.  Having devoured Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train just before the height of their popularity, I figured that The Woman in the Window would be the perfect thriller for me.  It is so often compared to those two books that I was so sure I’d love it.

I am so sad to say that I ended up disappointed with this book.  I’ve been puzzling over the reason why, and I think it comes down to the fact that I listened to the audiobook.  While the narration was top notch -- she has this very sweet and soothing voice that’s actually quite eerie and is so perfect -- I just felt like I couldn’t fall into this story in the same way as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, both of which I read as physical books.  I was much more interested in Anna and her struggle with agoraphobia than I was with the mystery -- I found that I didn’t particularly care one way or another what was happening across the park.  Because I was listening rather than reading, my mind could go to other places and I could spend time pondering each character -- I figured out what was going on pretty quickly (with one major exception -- but that's to be discussed privately if you're interested).  I don’t think this would have been the case if I read a hard copy of the book. Perhaps thriller audiobooks just aren’t for me.

I think I liked Anna Fox too much for my own good, which swayed my feelings on her experiences throughout the book.  I was so much less skeptical of her than I was of, say, Rachel in The Girl on the Train.  Rachel is a wretched creature, completely destroyed by her past and her addiction.  You truly cannot trust what she sees and what she does -- she’s the perfect unreliable narrator.  I wont say too much here because of spoilers, but I found that Anna was a much more sympathetic character, which isn’t really what you want in an unreliable narrator.  

I can’t comment too much on the ending, which I found underwhelming, or the characters, but I just thought that The Woman in the Window was just okay.  I feel like I’m forever chasing the high of Gone Girl, a book that completely blew my mind.  I really wish I had chosen to read a physical copy of The Woman in the Window -- we have one floating around the family -- but I was impatient!  However I did learn a valuable reading lesson -- for me, thrillers should be read rather than listened to.

I will say that I think I just had a particularly weird reading experience with this one.  If you are interested in this book, I highly encourage you to pick it up.  It has been getting rave reviews (including from my own family members, who are very smart people with great taste) and I really think it will appeal to a lot of people!