The Woman Next Door (2019), by Sue Watson
Okieeeeeeeeee..... I didn't really like this book.🍰👩🍼🤰
🚘📱
The audiobook was annoying me - maybe it was the narrator's voice. But I just read it on my own. It's a really short book, but it took me a long time to get through it. Something about it felt so... artificial. I couldn't connect to any of the characters.
Typo on page 207. Usually when a newly published book has a typo like this, it means that the book wasn't edited properly before it was printed.
I enjoyed the references to Netflix, the Ted Bundy Tapes.
This court, independent of, but in agreement with the advisory sentence rendered by the jury does hereby impose the death penalty upon the defendant Theodore Robert Bundy. It is ordered that you be put to death by a current of electricity, sufficient to cause your immediate death, and that that current be passed through your body until you are dead.
Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself. It is an utter tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity, I think, as I’ve experienced in this courtroom.
You’re a bright young man. You’d have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. I don’t feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that.
A lot of gifs in this tag And in this tag.
I tried watching it today. I couldn't get through the first episode. It just made my skin crawl.
And this was cute. The "girls night in" scene, with cupcakes and romcoms and unicorn onesies and face masks....
...That said, why don't I share with you my favourite Disney "girls' night" posts.
- comfy disney princess reaction gifs i will actually use
- some really cute petitetiaras mashups
- disney princess night in fanart
- petitetiaras halloween manip
But back to the book.
I just couldn't connect with any of the characters. Even with the cozy girls' night in.
First of all, I didn't think it made sense that Amber was deleting the threatening texts. She was being threatened, multiple times. I could see someone deleting the text the first time, but after that they would go to get help.
That was the problem with this book. The way characters were written is not how real people act.
When I read that Amber slashed her own tires, I thought she was sending the texts to herself and basically doing all the other "creepy/stalker" things.
Going to paste in a Goodreads review here:
And then there's the plot.
The weather girl gets some unpleasant texts from a stalker. The teacher couple take her into their house to protect her and she's there for almost a year! In what world?
Because every fat, 40-something woman with self-image issues takes a gorgeous, glamourous TV star into her home to live with her and her husband... No?
I might skip to the end of this one just to see who is doing what to whom. I'm hoping it might all be a bad dream.
Finished this tonight. It's painful at times. The whole thing recounted from one pov, then another pov repeats it all, and then we have what I assume is supposed to be a shocking twist as a third pov comes in. Well if you didn't see that ending then you probably don't read much.
At times this seems really forced. A phone goes missing in the house and no one thinks to ring it to find it? Isn't that the first thing you do when you can't find your phone? Get someone to ring it for you? Ah, but when the action needed it because a 'stalker' calls, a call-back to that number reveals the phone. Nope. Real plot hole there.
I suspect I'm just not the right reader for this book.
If you like something really light for a holiday read you might enjoy it, but it annoyed the heck out of me.
A lot of this book didn't make any sense. Mostly it didn't make sense that Matt turned on Lucy so fast and kicked her out of the house when she was accused of being Amber's stalker. I guess it makes sense because Matt was revealed to be the stalker to whole time. But what was so convenient was that he lusted over Amber, the weathergirl all his life, and somehow she ends up moving next door? And they never told us if the baby was his or Ben's! I guess it doesn't really matter. Still, it annoyed me. As soon as it was set up that Lucy couldn't have a baby, and her BFF Amber had one but didn't really want it, it twigged on me that Amber would somehow die and Lucy would end up adopting and raising the baby.
This whole book was like Lucy (the protagonist) put a cake in the oven, but took it out when it was half done. Everything felt half-baked. Anyhow, glad I finished it.
The Girl on the Train (2015 novel)
The Girl on the Train (2016 movie)
The Woman in the Window (book and film)
My The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window tag