Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

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How was it?

There were many times when I wanted to just stop. Chapters after chapters detailing Anna’s life, and this might be something controversial to say given her condition, but it’s boring. I assumed that there might have been “subtle clues”, that will take a deeper meaning later on, lost in the first quarter of the book but I couldn’t care less. In fact, the clues aren’t subtle, more like heavy-handed foreshadowing, which I guess put me off because I theorized where this story could go and the references were just confirming what I suspected so it made the story even less interesting. Even the audiobook at 1 1/2x speed didn’t help because yes I switched to it, and thank goodness I got my credit back.

Making the life of an agoraphobic woman interesting is tall order but this book gives enough of a glimpse of the struggles agoraphobics deal with, and that’s nice. But at one point, when things finally started to pick up Anna just put me off. It was the bit when her therapist called in an elevator about her new prescription and alcohol. I read on though and got to a little more than half way through the book before I called it quits. I had major The Girl on the Train vibes except here she’s not labeled an alcoholic and seems more worried about proving she’s right than getting justice for the woman she met and was starting to like.

I am still very excited about the movie, and am curious to see how they’ll adapt this story. I ended up reading this book’s plot summary on Wikipedia, although there were some surprises I feel I made the right call to not finish it. Maybe someday I’ll go back but I doubt it.

The Woman in the Window is available on Amazon, Audible, The Book Depository and other book retailers near you.

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