Review: The Woman in the Window
A woman living alone, who drinks too much, witnesses a crime and no one believes or trusts her because of her alcohol-riddled brain. Sound familiar? You’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve just given a crude description of Girl on the Train. A. J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window could be a distant cousin of Paula Hawkins’s 2015 hit, but it isn’t groundbreaking and it doesn’t punch me in the gut quite as much.
The Woman in the Window was a slow burner for me; the first few chapters didn’t grab me. There’s a lot of scene setting — Dr Anna Fox’s severe agoraphobia, the monotony of her daily routine, her obsession with the neighbours. As the story develops you understand why all of that information is important, but the big hook doesn’t happen until a third of the way into the book. Chapter 32, to be precise. As promised by the blurb, “…Anna witnesses something horrifying”, but 156 pages in I was beginning to wonder when. If I hadn’t read the blurb and didn’t know that something big was coming, it’s possible that I would’ve given up before I reached the juicy bits.
From that point on the story picks up, and it became a real page-turner. I was sucked in, attached to the characters of Anna and Ethan and intrigued by the mystery of Jane Russell. The only character I wanted more of was David, Dr Fox’s “ very handsome” tenant. The relationship between Anna and David was starting to get interesting — the constant question of whether their relationship was mother and son or lovers in the night. It felt like their relationship peaked and then fizzled into nothing. Although I’m glad there was closure on what became of David in the end, I’m still disappointed that we didn’t see much of him after he disappeared to Connecticut.
As we delve into the mystery of what happened the night of November 4th, The Woman in the Window is full of little twists and questions. Did Anna see what she thinks she saw? Who is Jane Russell? Who took the picture of Anna sleeping? How many bottles of merlot does Anna get through on a weekly basis? Not too many twists to completely throw you off the plot, but enough to keep the pages turning quickly. The only twist I was disappointed in was the ‘big reveal’ that comes two-thirds of the way through, at the end of chapter 73. I hate to say, but I saw it coming. The insight we get into Anna’s backstory in the few chapters before gave a few clues, but I had an inkling from much earlier in the book. At this point, I’m not sure whether that’s just because I’ve read too many books and watched too many TV shows that fall into this genre — I might just be becoming immune to surprises! Either way, it didn’t leave me questioning everything and reeling from the shock.
The ending, on the other hand, did surprise me. The whole way through the book I thought we were leading up to a reveal that would tell us who Jane Russell really was, and whether or not Anna did invent the whole thing herself. I thought the ‘who done it’ part was done and dusted. Oh, how wrong I was. The last few chapters I really couldn’t put down (I even sacrificed my makeup on a couple of occasions so I had more reading time before work). I was never quite sure how it was going to end and whether Anna would get her chance to let the world know the truth. I also like a book that ties up all the loose ends, which The Woman in the Window did nicely.
Unsurprisingly, The Woman in the Window has been snapped up by Fox and the film is being released later this year. I think it will make for excellent viewing.
A slow burner, but worth the wait.
