An anonymous girl

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Average Rating
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
2019.
Language
English

Description

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller (January 2019) everyone is talking about! People Magazine's Book of the Week • Bookish's "Must-Read Books of Winter" • PopSugar's "Best Books of Winter" • Cosmopolitan's "2019 Books to Bring to Your Book Club" • Bookbub's "Biggest Books of Winter" • Refinery 29's "Best Books of January 2019" • Crime Reads' "January's Best Psychological Thrillers" • InStyle's "7 Books That You Should Resolve to Read This January" • HelloGiggles' "The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2019" • USA Today's "5 New Books Not to Miss" • Marie Claire's "The Best Women’s Fiction of 2019 (So Far)" • Hypable's "Winter Releases You Can’t Afford to Miss""Hendricks and Pekkanen are at the top of their game...You won't see the final twist coming."People Magazine“Beware strange psychologists…the authors know exactly how to play on their characters’ love of danger to bring them to the brink of disaster - and dare them to jump off.” —New York Times Book Review"Slickly twisty [with] gasp-worthy final twists...major league suspense."Publishers Weekly (starred review)"For those who relished the creepy stalking in Hendricks and Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us, this unnerving tale will have them rethinking what secrets are safe to share and if moral and ethics really matter when protecting the ones you love." —Library Journal (starred review)"Masterfully escalates the suspense."Booklist (starred review)Looking to earn some easy cash, Jessica Farris agrees to be a test subject in a psychological study about ethics and morality. But as the study moves from the exam room to the real world, the line between what is real and what is one of Dr. Shields’s experiments blurs.Dr. Shields seems to know what Jess is thinking… and what she’s hiding.Jessica’s behavior will not only be monitored, but manipulated. Caught in a web of attraction, deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.From the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, An Anonymous Girl will keep you riveted through the last shocking twist.

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Contributors
Hendricks, Greer Author
Kreinik, Barrie Narrator
Pekkanen, Sarah Author, author
Whelan, Julia Narrator
ISBN
9781250133731
9781250314208

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Although Greer Hendricks' female protagonists are more sympathetic than Paula Hawkins' decidedly unlikable women, they're equally unreliable guides through a maze of intricate plot twists and nonlinear narratives. A sense of menace and disorientation pervades both authors' work. -- Mike Nilsson
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Published Reviews

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The coauthors of the mega-best-selling The Wife between Us (2018) return with another spooky tale of psychological seduction. Two main characters (a makeup artist and a psychology professor) try to figure each other out, with the stakes growing ever higher, as in a David Mamet drama. Jessica struggles to make a living as a freelance makeup artist in New York. Her house calls all over the city give her some street smarts; her profession has made her skilled in sizing up people and what they need almost instantaneously. If she weren't so hard up, she probably wouldn't answer the ad from the psychology professor asking for volunteers to take a survey about morality and ethics. We meet the professor as she observes Jessica taking the survey and silently (and creepily) addresses her in the second person ( you ). The action moves from the psychologist's asking Jessica to take more surveys, with more intimate questions, and then instructing her to engage in real-time scenarios. Jessica's financial need propels her, along with the subtle manipulations of the professor, with whom Jessica slowly becomes obsessed. The movement here from small tests to bigger ones masterfully escalates the suspense. The juxtaposed points of view, with reactions of each protagonist to the other, keep the reader guessing until the end. A great follow-up to The Wife between Us.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

Struggling Manhattan makeup artist Jessica Farris impulsively decides to chase some quick cash by lying her way into an NYU psychiatrist's study-of ethics and morality, no less-in this slickly twisty psychological thriller from bestsellers Hendricks and Pekkanen (The Wife Between Us). Still shaky after a disturbing #MeToo encounter with a top theatrical producer that dashed her dream of doing stage makeup, the 28-year-old laps up the supportive attention from impossibly chic and self-confident Dr. Lydia Shields, whose second-person narrative alternates with Jessica's first person. So when the therapist starts to enlist her in increasingly dicey real-life role-playing assignments, including trying to pick up specific targets, such as a stranger in a hotel bar, Jess pushes aside her doubts and goes along-until she hears some information too alarming to ignore about the fate of Dr. Shields's previous protAcgAc. The page-turner's second half whizzes along at a furious pace, exploiting the dual perspectives for maximum tension. Though some of the gasp-worthy final twists require substantial character flip-flops, it's a relatively minor sacrifice for major league suspense. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders and Assoc. (Jan.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Library Journal Review

Makeup artist Jess Farris needs money to pay for her sister's therapy after a brain injury. When Jess overhears a client cancel her participation in a psychological study conducted by a respected New York City psychiatrist, the prospect of making easy cash is too alluring, so she lies to take the woman's place. For Jess, now known as Subject 52, it seems like a dream come true, until the study moves into real-life vignettes created just for her, and she discovers that Dr. Lydia Shields has a personal agenda. Danger seems to wait for Jess around every corner, and after sharing so many dark secrets with Lydia, it seems leaving the study is almost impossible. Will she find the one thing she can use to stop the doctor's calculated manipulations? VERDICT For those who relished the creepy stalking in Hendricks and Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us, this unnerving tale will have them rethinking what secrets are safe to share and if morals and ethics really matter when protecting the ones you love. [See Prepub Alert, 7/2/18.]-K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Kirkus Book Review

A Manhattan makeup artist signs up for a study about morality and ethics that takes her deep into the danger zone.Using the addictive split narration gambit deployed in their debut, Hendricks and Pekkanen (The Wife Between Us, 2018) tell another tense tale of two female characters. Jessica is struggling to get by in New York City with a job doing makeup sessions in clients' homes. When she overhears that some ditzy college girls she's working on have signed up to take a psychological survey for $500, she breaks into their voicemail while they're out of the room to get the information, then pretends to be one of them when she arrives at the appointment. (Why she didn't just ask them about it we'll never know.) Ironically, the survey contains questions like "Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?" and "Describe a time in your life when you cheated." Turn the page, and now we're watching Jessica from the other side, from the perspective of the immediately rather creepy researcher, Dr. Lydia Shields, who is already aware of her subject's deception. "This test can free you, Subject 52," she is thinking. "Surrender to it." We quickly learn the survey is just a front for recruiting a susceptible young woman to act as bait in some nefarious schemes Dr. Shields has planned...schemes which may have already led to the death of a woman known as Subject 5. Almost nothing about this story or its characters is believable or makes much sense, from Jessica's naivet to Lydia's sociopathic tendencies to the awful and life-changing bit of personal history they share. Leave that aside, though, and you can still have a bit of fun watching their game of cat and mouse play out.A harmless page-turner. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* The coauthors of the mega–best-selling The Wife between Us (2018) return with another spooky tale of psychological seduction. Two main characters (a makeup artist and a psychology professor) try to figure each other out, with the stakes growing ever higher, as in a David Mamet drama. Jessica struggles to make a living as a freelance makeup artist in New York. Her house calls all over the city give her some street smarts; her profession has made her skilled in sizing up people and what they need almost instantaneously. If she weren't so hard up, she probably wouldn't answer the ad from the psychology professor asking for volunteers to take a survey about morality and ethics. We meet the professor as she observes Jessica taking the survey and silently (and creepily) addresses her in the second person ("you"). The action moves from the psychologist's asking Jessica to take more surveys, with more intimate questions, and then instructing her to engage in real-time scenarios. Jessica's financial need propels her, along with the subtle manipulations of the professor, with whom Jessica slowly becomes obsessed. The movement here from small tests to bigger ones masterfully escalates the suspense. The juxtaposed points of view, with reactions of each protagonist to the other, keep the reader guessing until the end. A great follow-up to The Wife between Us. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.
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Library Journal Reviews

When Jessica signs up for an ethics study involving women aged 18–32, she doesn't anticipate that the mysterious doctor in charge will be so dangerously controlling. From the authors of the smash best seller The Wife Between Us; major publicity.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal.
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Library Journal Reviews

Makeup artist Jess Farris needs money to pay for her sister's therapy after a brain injury. When Jess overhears a client cancel her participation in a psychological study conducted by a respected New York City psychiatrist, the prospect of making easy cash is too alluring, so she lies to take the woman's place. For Jess, now known as Subject 52, it seems like a dream come true, until the study moves into real-life vignettes created just for her, and she discovers that Dr. Lydia Shields has a personal agenda. Danger seems to wait for Jess around every corner, and after sharing so many dark secrets with Lydia, it seems leaving the study is almost impossible. Will she find the one thing she can use to stop the doctor's calculated manipulations? VERDICT For those who relished the creepy stalking in Hendricks and Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us, this unnerving tale will have them rethinking what secrets are safe to share and if morals and ethics really matter when protecting the ones you love. [See Prepub Alert, 7/2/18.]—K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX

Copyright 2018 Library Journal.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal.
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

Struggling Manhattan makeup artist Jessica Farris impulsively decides to chase some quick cash by lying her way into an NYU psychiatrist's study—of ethics and morality, no less—in this slickly twisty psychological thriller from bestsellers Hendricks and Pekkanen (The Wife Between Us). Still shaky after a disturbing #MeToo encounter with a top theatrical producer that dashed her dream of doing stage makeup, the 28-year-old laps up the supportive attention from impossibly chic and self-confident Dr. Lydia Shields, whose second-person narrative alternates with Jessica's first person. So when the therapist starts to enlist her in increasingly dicey real-life role-playing assignments, including trying to pick up specific targets, such as a stranger in a hotel bar, Jess pushes aside her doubts and goes along—until she hears some information too alarming to ignore about the fate of Dr. Shields's previous protégé. The page-turner's second half whizzes along at a furious pace, exploiting the dual perspectives for maximum tension. Though some of the gasp-worthy final twists require substantial character flip-flops, it's a relatively minor sacrifice for major league suspense. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders and Assoc. (Jan.)

Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly.

Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly.
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