A beautiful house with an exacting landlord, and a tragic history that seems to repeat itself. The Girl Before had me hooked from start to finish.
Disclosure: I received a copy of The Girl Before* for review. The opinions below are my own and unbiased.
One Folgate Street is an ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect after the death of his wife and son. Anyone who wants to rent it has to go through a strict interview process and agree to 200 conditions. No pets, no children, no books, nothing left on the floor…
Jane is looking for a fresh start and a new place to live after the stillbirth of her daughter. Several years earlier, Emma and her boyfriend Simon are also looking for somewhere to live. They need to move quickly, because Emma has been the victim of a vicious armed robbery in their flat. Both women are attracted by the house’s austere beauty, which hints at a opportunity to reinvent themselves. But Jane discovers what happened to Emma while she was living in the house. She soon starts to worry that the same may happen to her.
The Girl Before is the creepiest book that I’ve read in a long time. I picked it up one evening, to read a few pages and see what it was like. I finally put it down in the early hours of the next morning, having read through the whole book. Every time I tried to put it down, there was another twist and I just had to see what happened next.
The book’s chapters alternate between Then: Emma and Now: Jane, and the stories develop alongside each other. As events from Emma’s story are repeated in Jane’s story, the similarities between them grow. The effect is disturbing, and draws the reader further and further into the novel. At times, I found myself having to flick back a few pages to check which story I was reading at that point. The tension is gradually cranked up until both stories reach their terrifying conclusions.
Many of the characters in The Girl Before aren’t very likeable, most of them are hiding secrets and telling lies. Edward Monkford, the house’s architect, is particularly unpleasant and manipulative. Emma’s boyfriend Simon is arrogant and hiding his own secrets. Emma is the most complex character with an intriguing story that kept me guessing right to the end of the book. Only Jane stood out as a likeable character. I found myself hoping that she wouldn’t meet the same fate as Emma.
There are twists and turns throughout the novel, and the ending took me completely by surprise. It’s very easy for psychological thrillers to fall back on old cliched standbys, but the author skilfully avoids this.
The only issue that I have with this book is that I really don’t like the use of the word ‘Girl’ in the title. Neither Emma nor Jane are girls, they are grown women and should be described as such. Would it really have been so terrible to call the book ‘The Woman Before’?
Other than that, this is an excellent book that I would highly recommend if you enjoy a creepy, gripping psychological thriller. Universal has apparently bought the film rights to The Girl Before, and hired Ron Howard to direct it. I can certainly imagine that this novel will translate very well to the big screen.
The blurb:
Jane stumbles on the rental opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to live in a beautiful ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition she abides by a long list of exacting rules. After moving in, she discovers that a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there – and starts to wonder if her own story will be a re-run of the girl before. As twist after twist catches the reader off guard, Emma’s past and Jane’s present become inexorably entwined in this tense, page-turning portrayal of psychological obsession.
Following in the footsteps of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Girl on the Train’, ‘The Girl Before’ is being brought to the big screen. The film is set to be directed by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard.
A creepy, suspenseful psychological thriller that had me gripped from start to finish: 8/10
The Girl Before* is published in hardback by Quercus, and is also available in Kindle format.
The post Book Review: “The Girl Before” by JP Delaney appeared first on Sally Akins.