Name: The Girl Before You
ISBN: 9780008332723

Nicola Rayner

‘So addictive, it should come with a health warning’ Observer She was his. She was perfect. And then, she was gone.

The Girl Before You

Megan Leprich

Thank you so much to Avon Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was not the page-turner I was expecting it to be. I was hoping for a great domestic thriller after reading the synopsis but it fell a little short for me. It was an overall okay read but at times I felt like the story was getting repetitive and I was reading the same thing over and over again. 

This story is told from three different points of view and goes back and forth between the past and present. There were a few times when I honestly got confused about what time frame we were in and I forgot which character’s view I was reading about. I think the reason for that was because the book seemed extremely slow-paced so I would kind of drift off and forget where I was at. 

The writing style is another thing I didn’t really care for in this book. I found myself getting bored a lot because it wasn’t very engaging for me. I might still try to read other books by the author but this wasn’t a “gasp-inducing” novel like it was claimed to be.

Jessica 

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Review was originally posted here to Booked J. 
   As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way. 


The Girl Before You, not to be confused with The Girl Before, was not at all what I expected it to be. At all. Which, to put it bluntly, is a brilliant thing to note. The Girl Before You was highly addictive, if not a little generic and slowly paced in terms of modern thrillers, and I found myself, too, haunted by the story at hand.

Despite its flaws: Nicola Rayner sets a darkened atmosphere beautifully, covering each plotline in the intensity necessary to thrillers and mysteries. At times, it felt a bit stilled in development and as if we were going around in circles via the narration. This could be less to do with the story and Rayner's prose, and more to do with the fact that I read far too many thrillers.

This doesn't make The Girl Before You bad, per se, but at times it makes the story feel all-too-familiar or like you've been circling the same thing for too long. I had some issues, from time to time, where I felt like the story was dragging on and losing a bit of steam. That being said, it's never enough to fully take away from the fact that The Girl Before You is a genuinely good thriller--it just may not be for everyone.

The Girl Before You has a lot going for it--great setting and mystery, characters that feel impossible to look away from or forget and to-the-point thrills and chills via psychological thriller traits and, at the end of the day, will satiate many's desire for a good mystery to breeze through. I can easily see this being portrayed on screen or opening new readers up to the genre.

The Girl Before You

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