Hands down my favorite thriller of 2019.

Since Anna became separated from her husband and daughter she’s lived alone in her New York home, afraid to go outside. Inside, she spends her time on agoraphobia forums, watching old black and white movies, drinking wine, and occasionally spying on her neighbors. 

Most people are used to her life as a hermit until a new family moves in next door and Anna ends up seeing something she shouldn’t. 

“Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.”

I was immediately drawn to the narration in this book, not only because I knew from the onset that Anna would be a flawed, morally grey, and unreliable narrator (my fav!!!) but because I felt like I knew and understood her from the onset of the book. Not about her, not yet, I still had a lot to learn about our main character, but her personality, thought-processes, and way of speaking. This was only helped by the incredibly natural dialogue which studs this novel.

“My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft.”

The loyal first-person perspective from her point of view was always seamlessly ‘Anna,’ making her feel very real and true throughout and created a source of congruence and reliability within a plot that became more and more far-fetched to the point that it was only just believable. 

For being such a highly acclaimed thriller, I was ready to be floored by the twists and turns of the story, but I could usually tell from a few chapters beforehand what was going to happen, and some reveals seemed extremely obvious to me. Which, usually, would mean that I would rate it low. But the pacing and writing were still enough to keep the tension and suspense and I liked Anna as a character so much that I actually didn’t mind so much (will I ever say that again, probably not). And anyway, in the end, there were still a few surprises I really didn’t see coming. 

“And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.”

I rated The Woman in the Window 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would highly recommend this thriller to fans of The Girl in 6E who want less erotica, or just more film noir; to film buffs in general; and to those looking for an (honestly, better) version of The Woman in Cabin 10.