The Girl Before

Publication Date: 2 February 2017

Goodreads Description

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.

My Review

Sometimes being a book reviewer and book blogger is tough. It's important to be able to form an independent opinion of a book despite hearing and reading the reviews of others. This is especially difficult when a book has been receiving sterling reviews, as this one has. But in this case, I need to go against the grain and say that this read just didn't do it for me.

Despite this book getting off to a promising start, I found that it very soon became unrealistic and lacked substance. I found myself constantly asking "why would anyone do that?" or saying to myself "that would never happen in real life." Without giving anything away, let me just say that I don't know of a single person that would agree to rent and live in a house in which they were not even allowed to put a coffee mug down, or to leave the book they are busy reading in the lounge. A house that required the lessee to sign a lease with more than 200 prohibitive conditions, where the lessee had to agree to random surveys about themselves and if not completed within a short time period, certain fundamental appliances in the house would not work, like the shower or the stove. That is all just too ridiculously far fetched for me. I also found Edward to be an unrealistic character and one that would not get very far in real life, let alone be absolutely adored by not one but two woman. I know we are talking about a fictional story here, but still, for me a story must always be believable or else you lose me. So, unfortunately I must conclude by saying that this one won't make it onto my favourites list for this year. In fact, I think it might be down towards the bottom somewhere.

My rating: * *

Many thanks to the author, J. P Delaney, Quercus Books and NetGalley for my review copy. It was my pleasure to furnish an honest and unbiased review.