An Anonymous Girl
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An Anonymous Girl 〰️
I love how this book is told. We get Jessica in first person. But then we have Dr. Shield's POV, which is told in the second person. It's not often I come across this POV. I think the only book I've read with this POV was "You" by Caroline Kepnes. (Granted, I did read a book once that had this POV in small parts for certain chapters, but "You" used it the whole way). I think having Dr. Shield's chapters told in the second person is perfect for her personality. It reads like a clinical report, which to me, gives the impression that this is what she would write after each session with Jessica. It also really helped differentiate each character's chapter and gave each of them a distinct personality. It made for an interesting read.
The book was interesting from the start, but it was reading more like a four-star read for me until the halfway-ish point. As soon as Jessica starts to doubt Dr. Shield's motives and sees something more sinister is happening with the experiment, the book gets interesting. Not that it wasn't before. But before that point, it was mostly just Jessica doing random questionnaires, then random (to Jessica) experiments Dr. Shield asked her to do. Nothing odd other than she was being paid a lot of money just to meet (seemingly) random people and accept some gifts. But then Jessica starts to question everything, wondering if everything she does is a test, which is a valid response. It's a normal response. As I said, what really made it interesting was when we realized there is more to Dr. Shield's experiment than beneath the eye.
Then a whole web of lies hidden beneath truths comes out to play, and we question if everything means something. And it turns out, yes. Jessica was just a plaything for Dr. Shield. All the doctor wanted was to see why her husband cheated and see if he'd do it again by using Jessica as bait. Add in some murder and some deep philosophical questions, and we've got ourselves a worthy read.
I'm not sure how co-authoring works. Maybe one author writes one character, and the other writes the second. Maybe not. But what I do know is that Hendricks and Pekkanen worked extremely well together and wrote a compelling story. I'll be honest in saying I probably wouldn't have picked up this book if it wasn't given to me for free by a friend who was moving. But I'm glad I got it and read it because it was one helluva ride, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It makes me wonder what I would have done in Jessica's shoes.
