Girls, Interrupted
The Girl Before by JP Delaney
The Girl Before is, at times, almost like sci-fi story. It set in an eerie, minimalist high-tech house, like something from a dystopian 70s sci-fi movie.
The book is a true psychological suspense/thriller, even to the extent that there are questions from a psychological evaluation questionnaire dotted throughout the book – don’t worry, it’s part of the story! There are some cleverly linked past-and-future passages, as the book recounts the first-person narrated stories of two women in the same house one year apart: Jane: a fairly conventional woman, and Emma: a wilder, more messed-up character. But both have their fair share of emotional baggage to deal with.
There is a lot of gender reversal in the book, quite common in contemporary psychological thrillers, plenty of suspense and some very good twists. But most of the characters are pretty unlikeable, esp. the odious, self-obsessed “antagonist” Monkford.
This is a pretty dark story and there is a running theme of grief and madness throughout the book – can grief be a trigger for madness or even homicidal behaviour? Children – or the lack of – is another theme, as is maternity leave. The story also explores eating disorders, rape, trauma, therapy and counselling, PTSD and memory loss. But one of the main themes is the fear of modern technology and surveillance, as the house is rigged with all sorts of invasive surveillance equipment, including cameras.
There is also a focus on female sexual desire and women making bad choices of men (possibly through conditioning/brainwashing), interior design (esp. minimalism) and architecture. There are a large number of too graphic sex scenes – so many that, in my opinion, they become tedious – involving power games and rough sex a la 50 Shades, including one ridiculous scene in public surrounded by people and nobody notices a thing! In this book, women willingly – but unrealistically and seemingly for titillation’s sake – regularly cede power to men, and this left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, though others may disagree.
There are hints of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and the similar-looking-woman-who-went-before syndrome and what it’s like to be a victim of crime. And added to this rich mixture, we also have complex medical procedures and the law/NHS/negligence, the causes of low self-esteem, what makes a sociopath and clinical psychology! Phew!
As you can probably tell this is a complex, layered book that tackles many different themes and ideas and it does so brilliantly. It took the writer ten years to write and you can certainly see the depth of research and sheer effort that the writer has put into this novel. It is a fascinating story told very convincingly from two very different perspectives and, apart from the tedious sex scenes, it is a gripping story that has a very different and very modern take on the domestic noir/psychological thriller.
4/5
I would like to thank NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for a fair review.
