Book Review: Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Publish Date: January 31, 2017

Synopsis

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, and on a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar. David makes work very interesting for Louise.

Then Louise meets Adele, who’s new to town and happens to be married to David. Louise and Adele become fast friends and Louise is torn between her new friend and her attraction to her new boss.

David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but there is so much more than meets the eye…

This sounds like a typical love triangle. But – YOU. HAVE. NO. IDEA.

I went into this book cold. I heard some buzz, but no spoilers prepared me for this book.

I had an internal struggle on rating this book and writing this review. My feelings are mixed.

What I like about this book:

1. Louise. She is an engaging character, and obviously torn between her attraction to a married man and her new friend. She fights her feelings for David and feels extremely guilty for having these feelings. Sort of. She is in a moral dilemma and really struggled with this.
2. The writing. The author keeps the reader engaged with a very interesting love triangle and a coming-of-age backstory. The characters are flawed, vulnerable, naïve, but mostly likeable.
3. The pace. It’s like watching a train wreck. Even having NO IDEA about the unexpected ending, the pace was steady and I kept reading because I wanted to know where this was heading. I expected a logical ending that would tie all of these little tidbits together and make sense of the clues that the author sprinkled throughout the book.

I didn’t enjoy the ending… I was like, W T F! It blindsided me. Hard.

I was hoping for a Big Reveal, and boy, it did deliver one.

The Big Reveal was stunning, unexpected, crazy, far fetched, out of left field and did not support the plot that the author was building in the entire book.

The book was marketed as a thriller but it should be marketed as a supernatural mystery so that the reader has a clue about what direction this book was heading. The title is definitely relevant… but this title is the only clue.

I’m glad I checked it out from the library and this book continues to have a lot of buzz so I’m glad that I read it.

If you’ve read it, what did you think?