Author: Amelia Brunskill
Publication: Delacorte Press (April 3, 2018)
Description: If you love The Third Twin and One of Us Is Lying and binge-watched Thirteen Reasons Why, get ready for a heart-wrenching psychological thriller about a girl who knows her twin sister better than anyone . . . or does she? Taut and atmospheric, The Window will keep you guessing until the end.
Secrets have a way of getting out. . . .
Anna is everything her identical twin is not. Outgoing and athletic, she is the opposite of quiet introvert Jess. The same on the outside, yet so completely different inside--it's hard to believe the girls are sisters, let alone twins. But they are. And they tell each other everything.
Or so Jess thought.
After Anna falls to her death while sneaking out her bedroom window, Jess's life begins to unravel. Everyone says it was an accident, but to Jess, that doesn't add up. Where was Anna going? Who was she meeting? And how long had Anna been lying to her?
Jess is compelled to learn everything she can about the sister she thought she knew. At first it's a way to stay busy and find closure . . . but Jess soon discovers that her twin kept a lot of secrets. And as she digs deeper, she learns that the answers she's looking for may be truths that no one wants her to uncover.
Because Anna wasn't the only one with secrets.
My Thoughts: This excellent story begins with Jess, thinking in gym class, that she is doomed to be out of fashion for her whole life and eager to tell her twin Anna about her realization. Only the counselor comes to the door, her parents are in the main office, and her sister Anna has been found dead lying on the ground below her bedroom window.
The rest of the story follows Jess as she tries to find out what happened to her sister and what she didn't know about the person she thought she knew best of anyone in the world. Jess is quiet - probably somewhere on the Autism Spectrum - and knows that now she will have to pay attention to things that never caught her attention before if she wants to find out about her sister.
Her investigation leads her to making a friend, almost having a boyfriend, and joining the track team and finding out that she is actually pretty good at running. It also leads her to uncovering secrets in her sister's life and other secrets about people too as she pays attention to the other kids in her class who were Anna's friends.
This was excellently written. It gradually unfolded events as Jess makes discoveries and comes to realizations. Jess's world expands as she gains a better understanding about her sister. Between chapters are a few short paragraphs from Anna's point of view that sound like poetry or excerpts from a diary although no diary was found in her effects. They let us see what Anna was going through in the days before her death.
I highly recommend this engaging story. Jess is a wonderful character.
Favorite Quote:
Occasionally, I'd see it coming. The grief. Not the constant version, which always hummed in the background, like white noise, but the gut-pummeling, breath-stealing kind. Sometimes I could see it rolling in toward me, growing larger, feeding on itself, like a wave hurtling toward the shore.I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.
I just read this one too and I agree. I loved how Jess was relentless and slowly put the pieces together.
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