Kate’s Review: “Behind Her Eyes”

Book: “Behind Her Eyes” by Sarah Pinborough

Publishing Info: Flatiron Books, January 2017

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes?

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. 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…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.

Review: 

I know Serena has used that gif before, but this is the only way that I can describe my reading experience of “Behind Her Eyes” by Sarah Pinborough. Let me tell you, I slogged, SLOGGED through this book because it was promised to be one of the great thrillers of 2017. I have friends whom I greatly love and respect who really liked this book (and my disdain in this review is only a reflection of my own tastes, guys, not yours), so I kept going even though it took me almost a WEEK just to get through the damn thing. A WEEK, YOU GUYS. I can usually put away a book in two, three days, four tops. I went on because I was promised a twist, a game changing twist. I went on because I liked “13 Minutes,” the YA book that Pinborough did that I picked up on a whim. I WENT ON. AND WHAT DID I GET?

Okay, let me be constructive now, I just needed to rant.

“Behind Her Eyes” does have the goods to back up the fact that it’s not like other psychological female driven thrillers that we’ve seen as of late. I will one hundred percent give it that, no problem. Pinborough tells the story through a few different perspectives: the chapters from Louise’s point of view, the chapters from Adele’s point of view, and the ‘Then’ chapters about Adele and her rehab friend Rob. The story is pieced together bit by bit through all of their unreliable and partially constructed POVs. For whatever reason, I had a really hard time caring about any of it. Adele is emotionally unstable and deeply vicious in her plotting, Louise is simpering and so easily manipulated that she just pissed me off, and the Rob and Adele chapters were (seemingly) random and superfluous. They would jump and flip between narratives and none of it was enough to really keep me interested. You throw David, Adele’s husband and Louise’s love interest, into this mess through their conflicting POVs and you get a guy who is possibly a violent manipulator, and is assuredly a lying drunk. So what does anyone see in him? Why is Louise still interacting with him when 1) he’s married, 2) he’s her BOSS, and 3) he’s potentially an abusive spouse? I usually like to be able to find someone to connect with in these books when there are so many toxic players, but in this one there were none to be had.

But my biggest problem? That lays in the twist. And I am just going to throw it out there. So those of you who still want to give it a go, and by all means DO still give it a go if you want to, this is where you may wish to stop or to jump past the last paragraph this review. Here is your hearty

So Adele and Rob, whilst they were in rehab together when Adele was younger, experimented in lucid dreaming. When Adele and Louise become ‘friends’, Adele gets Louise into lucid dreaming. So what is lucid dreaming, you ask? It’s when the dreamer knows that she/he is dreaming, and because of it may be able to control what is going on inside of the dream. But what is it in this book? It’s FULL ON ASTRAL PROJECTING. In fact, it’s astral projecting that can therein turn into possession. Because what is the big twist folks???? Adele is NOT Adele! Rob, becoming obsessed with David back in the day, taught Adele how to astral project, and then killed her, and timed it JUST right that he could SLIP HIS CONSCIOUSNESS into her body!! So ‘Adele’ is actually ‘Rob’ the WHOLE TIME. And not only that, at the VERY end Rob manipulates Louise to astral project into Adele’s body, and then kills her too and astral projects into Louise’s body, so he can be with David once more!! That’s the end, folks!! I know that twists are kind of well expected in these kinds of thrillers these days, and that the less guessable the twist, the better. But when you have a book that is seemingly based in a real world situation without any basis or foundation for magical systems, I feel like you can’t just be like ‘AND THEN MAGIC!’ and try to pass it off as an actual phenomenon to craft a twist that no one saw coming. That feels like cheating! I actively rolled my eyes and tossed this book to the foot of the bed when I was done with it. Because WHAT THE HELL? Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Because that’s how I felt.

“Behind Her Eyes” just frustrated me more than anything else. I am going to do my usual disclaimer, because as a librarian I know that just because this book isn’t for me, it doesn’t mean it’s not for anyone else. So therefore:

I didn’t enjoy “Behind Her Eyes”. Perhaps you will. But know that it gets weird, and not in a way that I found enjoyable.

Rating 2: A plot that didn’t suck me in, unlikable characters, and a ridiculous twist that completely threw all credibility out the window really turned me off this book.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Behind Her Eyes” is included on the Goodreads lists “Emotion Overload”, and “Female Psychological Thrillers/Suspense Written by Women”.

Find “Behind Her Eyes” at your library using WorldCat!