Starting off the summer with some crime novels! Not gonna lie, with the excitement/anxiety of school being over, a bunch of distractions have been making my reading life a little dry. The only reason I got to finish these two books is because work still allots me a good hour or two of free time and I have no choice but whip out a book and pretend like I'm doing something scholarly.
I honestly don't remember much from reading Truly Devious, just that the story was heavily driven by setting, instead of mysterious events (which is what I tend to see in adult thriller books). I'm not sure if it was simply because I wasn't in the mood yet again, but I wasn't really invested in the characters and the storyline. I didn't care too much if the killer was caught or if the missing people were eventually found, which might be entirely my fault who knows but that's never a good sign when reading, right? Anyway, I did remember feeling annoyed because I felt like none of the big questions were answered by the time I finished it since this is the first installment in the series. I hate it when books do that man! When they leave you hanging because another one is bound to be released anyway >:( I do wanna give props to Maureen Johnson because I didn't know she wrote mystery! I always read her books in middle school but they were romance, contemporary and it's pretty nice seeing her in different genres.
Next! The Woman in the Window! This one, I did take notes on. A half-inked post it note is on my screen right now because I knew I had to write things down for the sake of remembering the good parts. First of all, I LOVE the way A.J. Finn writes. (I just looked up the author and oh my goodness I was under the impression that it was a girl this whole time but it's actually A MAN! why does this surprise me? and why do i feel like my whole review has been warped?....whatever) He is so SO good with describing things in an eerily beautiful way like I jotted down a couple quotes from the first hundred pages to give you an idea:
"legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon" (page 3)
"pale ridge of her spine, her shoulder blades like stunted wings" (page 4)
"swollen with longing" (page 46)
"smear yourself along his sofa" (page 76)
"steeples her fingers" (86) i think i wanted to include this because i liked the word 'steeple'
"pulpy sunset, dregs of dusk" (93)
I'm not sure if I've said this before but one of the trends in thriller books is that the beginning is often kind of slow. It's a lot of careful character and world building, to make sure every detail is placed before the action happens. And usually, the action doesn't actually start picking up until well over halfway of the book. So the thing I appreciated and the thing that kept me reading this particular story was the writing style. Very addicting syntax, in my opinion.
Other things I liked: I thought it depicted agoraphobia really terrifyingly well. I wouldn't know because I don't have it BUT it did give me a glimpse of why this fear is present in some people and how much it actually affects their lives. Scary stuff! The pacing was really fast too, which I liked. Each chapter is less than 10 pages long which helps me flip through them quicker because I feel like I'm getting somewhere. Oh! Also, I really liked the main character. Usually, it's rare for me to because you can never really trust the main characters in thriller novels since they might very well be the crazy ones (doesn't mean I'm ruling that archetype out for this one) but I felt for her! Her guilt and longing for her family; her little odd quirks (reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant in some ways); her flaw in trusting people too quickly; her LONELINESS. I think that's why it's crazy for me to know that the writer was actually a man, just because he slipped into the female psyche pretty well. I would say that I wasn't really surprised at any of the plot twists. I don't know why but I always figured it out right before the twist happened - like literally the page before, I'd be able to guess. But it doesn't mean it was a bad book! I really enjoyed it actually.
Truly Devious : 2/5 stars
The Woman in the Window : 4/5 stars
