THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW BOOK REVIEW

It has been a while since I’ve read a book that I literally couldn’t put down. The Woman in the Window by Finn was recommended to me by my sister so I was anxious to start reading it. Oh MY! It didn’t disappoint. 

 I loved it so much and was at the most exciting part that I took it with me to Buffalo and read all the way up and hated to leave it in the car long enough to go into the Animal Hospital. Then I had to pick it up again and finish it on the way home because I had to know. It had so many twists that I got dizzy.  Here is a short review by the Washington Post:

Most of the hundreds of first novels published each year sink like stones into a vast, cold ocean of indifference. A lucky handful receive a more favorable welcome. A.J. Finn’s “The Woman in the Window” is among these fortunate few. 

“The Woman in the Window,” by A.J. Finn (William Morrow)

Even before its publication, movie rights were sold as well as foreign rights in multiple countries. Novels such as this, for which publishers have high hopes, are often dreadful potboilers. But if “The Woman in the Window” achieves success, it will be entirely deserved. It’s a beautifully written, brilliantly plotted, richly enjoyable tale of love, loss and madness. 

The title character, Anna Fox, is 38 and lives alone in a costly house in uptown Manhattan. We soon learn why she is so often peering out her window. She is agoraphobic and has not left home in nearly a year, but she delights in spying on her neighbors. Otherwise, Anna drinks a great deal of wine, mostly merlot, and watches countless black-and-white movie classics — “Gaslight,” “Rebecca,” “Strangers on a Train” and “Spellbound” are among her favorites. 

Anna’s husband has left her and taken their 8-year-old daughter with him. She talks to them by phone and vainly begs him to return. She’s a child psychologist and still advises a few patients by email, but mostly she is alone with her wine, her movies and her cat. She also has a tenant, a handsome carpenter who lives in her basement. His presence injects a bit of “will they or won’t they?” excitement into the story, but mostly she is content to spy on her neighbors. 

Then, Ethan Russell, a boy of 16 who lives across the street, arrives bearing a gift from his mother. He is a good-looking, friendly lad: “He looks like a boy I once knew, once kissed — summer camp in Maine, a quarter century ago. I like him.” Anna meets Ethan’s parents, Paul and Jane, and Finn’s plot kicks in.