Review: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The next novel of psychological suspense and obsession from the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us

Seeking women ages 18–32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed. 

When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking…and what she’s hiding. As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields’ manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.

From the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us comes an electrifying new novel about doubt, passion, and just how much you can trust someone.

I received a copy of this title via NetGalley. It does not impact my review

An Anonymous Girl will be available January 8, 2019. 

After loving The Wife Between Us by this author duo, I have had sky high expectations for their follow up novel, An Anonymous Girl. Unfortunately, those expectations were not met.

It took me quite a long time to get into this book. I found the first third or so of it incredibly boring. I didn’t really care about either of the main characters. For awhile everything Jess did got on my nerves. I just didn’t think her behavior made sense. I did eventually start to enjoy it a little more, but it kind of came in waves. I was hooked for sections here and there, but mostly the pacing was just far too slow for me. In the previous book by these authors I also had a problem with the pacing, but the multiple big twists made up for it. Unfortunately here, there are no big, shocking twists to save it. There are several things that I guess are supposed to be surprises or small twists, but nothing happened that I didn’t already guess.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because of spoilers. I will say that I thought the whole thing was a little far fetched. Whenever Jess “figured something out” I always felt like it kind of came out of nowhere and was a little too convenient. One positive thing I will say, is that I thought the writing was pretty seamless between the two authors. Their writing styles complement each other very well and despite my  disappointment with this book, I’ll still read more from them in the future.

Overall, An Anonymous Girl failed to live up to my high expectations. I never connected with the characters and didn’t really care what happened to them and found the overall mystery itself a little lackluster. I am upping my rating from a 2 to a 3 due to the seamless writing of the two authors and because there were a few moments here and there that I enjoyed myself. From the other reviews I’ve seen of this book so far I am clearly in the minority, so this still may be worth your time to give it a try.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 3 Stars