Behind Her Eyes

What an absolute rollercoaster of a psychological thriller!

Sarah Pinborough weaves a twisted tale of love, secrets, and deception that’s unlike anything I’ve ever listened to. The story follows Louise, a single mom who gets entangled in a messy love triangle with her charming boss, David, and his enigmatic wife, Adele. What starts as a seemingly predictable drama spirals into a mind-bending web of lies, unreliable narrators, and a supernatural twist that I never saw coming.

The audiobook’s narration is phenomenal. They bring each character to life with distinct voices that amplify the tension and emotion. The pacing is perfect, building suspense slowly before hitting you with a double-twist ending that left me speechless.

It’s show more addictive, unsettling, and brilliantly crafted! If you love a story that keeps you guessing until the very last second, grab this audiobook and brace yourself for a wild ride. show less

This book is bonkers!

A friend at work gave it to me and she warned me that it was exasperating and crazy and I wouldn’t see what was coming. I started reading right away but then COVID happened and I was distracted from it but then yesterday I picked it up again and zoomed right through.

I was trying the whole time to figure out what was going on and outsmart the author and I never quite managed. As I said in my opener, the whole thing is bonkers but on a fun (and creepy) way.

Recommend as long as you suspend disbelief and are ready for a ride.

Some books, like BEHIND HER EYES, present situations that make the reader ask, how will the author write herself out of this? And then sometimes the author does, but other times the author uses what I call "the easy way out" and makes the impossible possible with paranormal abilities. If not for that, this would have been a five-star book.

BEHIND HER EYES really had me going for the majority of the book. Louise makes a few poor decisions when it comes to Adele and David, the first and probably worst being her inability to tell Adele that she (Louise) was sexually involved with David and to tell David that she (Louise) had become a friend of Adele's. Louise didn't want to give up either. So she made a whole lot of trouble for herself. show more This sounds like a silly romance novel, I know, but really it isn't. It is quite a page turner.

Where BEHIND HER EYES goes wrong is in the last couple of chapters. Whereas other reviewers say this end is a surprise, I would add that it is a disappointment. It is too easy to use paranormal abilities as explanations. So, while others gasped in surprise and then gasped again, I laughed.

Now I wonder, did Sarah Pinburough mean for the last chapter to be funny? Because, after the surprise/disappointment of the previous chapter, I think it is.

This review is of an ARC sent to me by the publisher. show less

I was looking forward to this book ever since I saw it being advertised, a few weeks before release. I had enjoyed Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, and this book was hailed as being similar to the two. While there were definitely similar elements, it was a whole another story. Glad I picked this one up, because once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down until the final page. One of the few books that lives up to the hype.

The story is dark and twisted, and every time you think you know what's going on, the author throws in another wrench. Nothing is truly what it seems, and I didn't figure anything out until the end. Speaking of which, wow, that was a crazy ending. A little far-fetched, but crazy and unique all the same.

Ms. show more Pinborough weaves us a tale of betrayal and mystery, among three broken people who get into one twisted love triangle (and *that* isn't even what it seems). She brought together all the pieces from the past and present and tied everything together at the end. I don't like when things are left unexplained, so this was refreshing. The story is told through both female MC's POV in first person, as well as weaving in the story of the wife's past in third person.

The whole concept of lucid dreaming is quite interesting, and I'm interesting in learning more about it. It plays a bigger part in the characters' lives than it first lets on.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were made into a movie at some point. Well done! I will be recommending this book to others, and will look for this author's future works. show less

This book is described as a psychological thriller but this is misleading; it should be described as a paranormal thriller.

The story is narrated from the perspective of two women, Adele and Louise. Louise, a single mother, meets David in a bar and flirts with him only to discover the next day that he is her new boss. She literally bumps into Adele, David’s wife, and the two become friends though Adele wants their friendship kept a secret because her husband “’can be a bit funny about mixing work life and home life.’” Things become even more complicated when Louise starts an affair with David, an affair which, of course, she wants to keep a secret from Adele.

It is obvious from the beginning that much is not as it seems. The show more relationship between David and Adele is strained; the reason for the tension is not revealed because David and Adele don’t really talk and David refuses to discuss his marriage with Louise. Gradually, however, the reader glimpses the truth behind the marriage, and as Adele’s past is exposed, it is clear that she is not Louise’s friend. Adele teaches Louise about lucid dreaming to help with her night terrors and the technique works but has unexpected effects.

Neither of the women is a sympathetic character. Adele is duplicitous and manipulative so she is unlikeable. Louise constantly makes illogical choices and behaves in morally reprehensible ways. Despite having been hurt when her ex-husband cheated on her, she puts another woman, a friend, in the same position to be hurt by a philandering husband? Her decisions could even potentially put her son in harm’s way, yet she seems incapable of stopping her foolish behaviour. She knows what she should do but doesn’t. I wanted to scream the Nike slogan at her!

Adele has a plan, but it is amazing how well her plan falls into place. Though her plan requires people to behave a certain way and for interactions between people to proceed in a specific way, not once does she suffer any setbacks? David is the psychiatrist but Adele is the one who understands people so well that she knows exactly how they will behave? Given the ending, Adele’s astuteness is even less plausible. And let’s ignore the fact that there is no scientific evidence of astral projection.

Yes, that ending. Many readers have praised the ending because it is one that no one would ever guess – as if that were a good thing. I enjoy plot twists but the ending is ludicrous and outlandish. Too much information is withheld so the author cheats. One could argue that the title and statements like “We can never see who someone really is underneath the skin” are clues but these are so ambiguous as to be laughable.

At first, I enjoyed the book but as it increasingly required more and more suspension of disbelief, I became impatient with its outrageousness. If the book had been properly described as containing paranormal elements, I would not have chosen to read it. So the entire book is a cheat; because descriptions of the book omit reference to a key element, the reader is manipulated as much as Adele manipulates Louise.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

Louise has an encounter with a man in a bar that ends with a kiss, after which she has trouble getting him out of her head. Then she discovers that the man is her new boss. And then she (literally) bumps into the guy's wife and somehow finds herself entering into a friendship with her, even while there's something developing between Louise and the husband. So far, so Jerry Springer, but then things get really weird. There is obviously something very, very odd going on in that marriage, but it's not remotely obvious what. And the wife is clearly pursuing some scheme, but is she a villain or a victim?

I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but this is another book I feel like I enjoyed maybe more than I actually should have. I show more mean, the plot is nuts. Just nuts. I'm not sure how well any of it holds up under too much scrutiny. It also does this thing of starting out feeling like it's grounded in the real world only to introduce some mystical or paranormal idea partway in, which is usually something I find very annoying. I like fantasy elements, but only if they're clear from the start, rather than feeling like the author is expecting me to believe these things are real. It didn't bother me nearly as much here as it usually does, though. And I actually managed to find Louise somewhat sympathetic despite the fact that she makes all the worst, most awful, most eyeroll-inducing decisions in the world, which leaves me unsure whether to feel irritated or impressed at the way she's written.

And then there's the ending, which is touted all over the dust jacket as a shocker. I was feeling rather smug about the fact that I saw it coming at least 50 pages ahead, but it turned out I only guessed about half of it. The things I didn't had part of me feeling quite pleased that I got an unexpected ending after all, while the rest of me (probably the more rational part) protested feebly that it wasn't sure any of it actually worked, on any number of levels.

But. Well, it did keep me entertained and interested the entire time I was reading it. Which is possibly all I ask of this kind of novel. Maybe that's just because I happened to be in exactly the right, not-very-critical mood, but, y'know, I'll take it.

Rating: 4/5. Based, of course, entirely on my enjoyment levels rather than on some objective attempt at assessing its quality. show less

I was looking forward to this book ever since I saw it being advertised, a few weeks before release. I had enjoyed Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, and this book was hailed as being similar to the two. While there were definitely similar elements, it was a whole another story. Glad I picked this one up, because once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down until the final page. One of the few books that lives up to the hype.

The story is dark and twisted, and every time you think you know what's going on, the author throws in another wrench. Nothing is truly what it seems, and I didn't figure anything out until the end. Speaking of which, wow, that was a crazy ending. A little far-fetched, but crazy and unique all the same.

Ms. show more Pinborough weaves us a tale of betrayal and mystery, among three broken people who get into one twisted love triangle (and *that* isn't even what it seems). She brought together all the pieces from the past and present and tied everything together at the end. I don't like when things are left unexplained, so this was refreshing. The story is told through both female MC's POV in first person, as well as weaving in the story of the wife's past in third person.

The whole concept of lucid dreaming is quite interesting, and I'm interesting in learning more about it. It plays a bigger part in the characters' lives than it first lets on.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were made into a movie at some point. Well done! I will be recommending this book to others, and will look for this author's future works. show less