 |
Behind Her Eyes |
Don’t
Trust This Book
Don’t
Trust These People
Don’t
Trust Yourself
And
whatever you do, DON’T give away that ending…
I like Sarah Pinborough. I like her Twitter account, which
makes me feel like we should be pals, and (more importantly) I also like her writing.
I read The Death House in 2015 and Thirteen Minutes last year and I loved them both so I was ridiculously excited about Behind Her Eyes as soon as I heard it was going to be a thing, and
then there was the whole hashtag thing going on – and whoever does Sarah’s
publicity deserves a high five because this book has been all over my twitter
for the longest time and the buzz generated by #wtfthatending has been pretty
remarkable. It was like a secret gang and I totes wanted in.
I finally got round to reading it last week, and it’s the
worst isn’t it when it takes you so long to read a book you really want to read;
when it’s always there at the back of your mind and you just. can’t. get. to. it.
Anyway, I started it one night about 10pm in a hilariously misguided ‘I’ll just
read the first chapter’ which resulted in me not turning the light off til
11.30 and then thinking about it all the next day and stopping up waaaaay too
late again the next night and it’s a problem really. It’s a problem because I
need my sleep. All the sleep, I need it. I wasn’t working on Friday last week,
so stopping up too late reading wasn’t as bad as it had been the night before
but still, I had plans. Only with myself but still, there were plans.
I went to Skipton because I was going to be one of those ladies
that mooches around pretty market towns being all carefree and stuff, but I had
my Kindle in my bag and there was a Starbucks and I accidentally sat down with
a coffee and read the last 30% because I could not stop with the page turning and
then all of a sudden I’d finished the book and done zero mooching and it was
time to head home again to hang with my bestie. Whoops. Not that I’m really complaining because in actuality,
is there a better way to spend your day off than in a coffee shop with a good
book? I think not.
Anyway.
This book.
It’s about Louise – a
single Mum in a bit of a rut who kisses a guy(David) on a night out, only to
find out when she gets to work on Monday that the guy is her new boss. Her new
married boss. I know, right. It gets better though, because Adele, the new friend that Louise has just made? Yep,
that’s David’s wife and trust me on this, you might think you can predict where
this story is going. BUT YOU CAN’T.
First off the ending, and never has there been such an
accurate hashtag because erm, #wtfthatending. AKA #wtfhow. It’s super good. It’s
creepy and chilling and dark and so gripping. It’s twisty and turny and you know some serious shit is going to go
down but you’re never quite sure what its’s going to be and you get totally
drawn into this incredibly well -crafted story of lies and deceit and fucked up
levels of control and you can’t relax at all because you don’t trust anybody and
you don’t really like anybody all and it’s the most wonderful kind of messed up.
It’s obvious from the beginning that things are so far from
right and the secrets are sort of just there,
you can practically taste them, but you can’t quite reach them and you do have to suspend reality quite a bit
and I don’t want to say too much about that either but basically, I loved it.
Mostly I loved it because just when I thought I’d sussed it,
something else happened that had me thinking ‘what the fuck oh ok maybe not
then.’ I mean, never has a character gone from being bad guy to good guy and
back again as many times as David did in this book. It’s so clever and the
characterisation is so freaking good – Adele especially. As character she’s freaking
excellent, the kind of character you just don’t get to see enough of. Actually,
this book as a whole is the kind of thing you just don’t get to see enough of. The
story in itself is something else but what made it for me is what Sarah Pinborough
does with words because the characters whilst excellent aren’t likeable and the
story is nutso and it jumps back and forwards so much that a lesser writer
would only leave you feeling a little seasick but Sarah Pinborough can write
and she unravels this tale so beautifully and so cleverly and I was kind of
mesmerised actually. And there is so much I want to say but I am afraid to because
I don't want to accidentally give anything away but it’s out now and you should
get involved.
