Invisible Girl
A Novel
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“I absolutely loved Invisible Girl—Lisa Jewell has a way of combining furiously twisty, utterly gripping plots with wonderfully rich characterization—she has such compassion for her characters, and we feel we know them utterly… A triumph!” —Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.
Young Saffyre Maddox spent three years under the care of renowned child psychologist Roan Fours. When Dr. Fours decides their sessions should end, Saffyre feels abandoned. She begins looking for ways to connect with him, from waiting outside his office to walking through his neighborhood late at night. She soon learns more than she ever wanted to about Roan and his deceptively perfect family life. On a chilly Valentine’s night, Saffyre will disappear, taking any secrets she has learned with her.
Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.
Owen lives across the street from the Fours family. The Fours have a bad feeling about their neighbor; Owen is a bit creepy and suspect and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night. Could Owen be responsible? What happened to the beautiful missing Saffyre, and does her disappearance truly connect them all?
Evocative, vivid, and unputdownable, Lisa Jewell’s latest thriller is another “haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Facile plotting, underdeveloped characters, and unconvincing stakes mar this disappointing domestic thriller from bestseller Jewell (The Family Upstairs). Owen Pick, a 33-year-old computer science teacher, gets suspended from his London college when female students allege sexism in the classroom and misconduct at a Christmas party. While awaiting the results of the school's investigation, Owen a virgin who lives with his aunt begins frequenting rage-filled "incel" web forums. Across the street, 52-year-old Cate Fours a stay-at-home mom to two teenagers grows suspicious of Owen after a masked man starts assaulting local women. Meanwhile, troubled 17-year-old Saffyre Maddox, whom Cate's husband, child psychologist Roan, recently discharged from treatment for self-harm, decides to follow Roan, because, after three years of therapy, she misses his stabilizing presence. To Saffyre's regret, her surveillance reveals that Roan isn't the upstanding man she believed him to be. Though Jewell neatly entwines her protagonists' story lines, a too-pat conclusion fails to gratify. Fans will hope for a future return to form.
Customer Reviews
Solid Story, Slow Start
While I did read this in a few days it had a very slow start. The book centers on 3 seemingly unrelated characters. The slow burn to see how those characters are linked could have been shortened entirely. Once it picks up the book moves very fast then it is all summarized in a few pages. I felt more energy could have been spent there, as the story feels a bit incomplete. Overall, it was a good read though.
Could not put it down!
Very well done.
Thriller + Character Connections
Great book from beginning to end. Slow burn but very well written and kept me on my toes.