Rating: 4 / 5
THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY by Sulari Gentill was one of our July book picks for the #SaturdayBookstaClub on Bookstagram. I had seen this on a couple most anticipated lists for mysteries and thrillers, so was happy to receive a copy in my Unplugged Book Box!
THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY follows two different stories. In one, a woman is working in the Boston Public Library when she and everyone around her is startled by a woman’s scream. She and the three strangers who share her table begin to talk and form a new friendship out of this strange and frightening situation. We are told that one of them is a murderer.
Outside of this storyline, we are told that the story which begins in the library is a manuscript being written by a bestselling author in Australia. Between the chapters of that story we get correspondence from a man acting as a beta reader, providing local research in Boston, and feedback on the story and writing as a whole.
I was not sure what to make of this story within a story format in the beginning. Getting the commentary on the story initially felt like it was going to be taking me out of the flow of the story itself. I was therefore surprised that it didn’t take long for me to settle in and I wound up looking forward to getting the take of the “other reader” on the mystery in the manuscript to see how it was the same or different from my own.
This book definitely takes some twists that I wasn’t expecting and it absolutely kept me hooked throughout. There were some things I wish we had better answers on and some outstanding questions in the end. This isn’t likely a book I would recommend to everyone as there aren’t going to be concrete and final answers to everything. Our buddy read definitely had mixed opinions which makes sense.
In the end, I wound up really having a good time with this and it really made for a fantastic book club discussion!
Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.
DG Reads 