Book Review: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

I thoroughly enjoyed The Wife Between Us, the previous title by the tag-team of Hendricks and Pekkanen, and was eagerly awaiting their next foray into storytelling. They have a perfect blend of voices together; by shifting points of view between two main characters by chapter, the two women are able to capture the fascinating divergence of perspective that makes life – and thrillers – so engaging… It doesn’t hurt that they come up with clever and damaged characters who offer a wealth of opportunities to explore morality, life, and social interactions in such a fascinating and nuanced way.

In this iteration, we’re again dabbling in the psychological, taking on two women from wildly different backgrounds with wildly disparate lives – or are we? The tension and secrets and questions that hang in the air from page to page are a huge part of what make these women’s books so successful I think. They have a marvelous knack for dangling the perfect blend of facts, fictions, and red herrings in front of their readers, and for keeping things taut and tense throughout the story. Even when you’ve been told what to expect, you don’t *really* expect it. It makes for a very engaging read…

I will admit that I didn’t find this book to be quite as surprising as the previous one. That’s not at all to say that I didn’t enjoy it – I did, quite a bit – but it felt a little less “ta-da!” when things were revealed in this one and I saw a lot more coming this time around. The characters were once again a nice meld of likeable and eminently dislikeable traits. I love that Hedricks and Pekkanen not only present but explore the uglier sides of human nature with such glee – their characters are always just this side of over-the-top in their highs and lows… It keeps them just relatable enough that you feel like you might even know them (or someone like them) even when they’re at their worst and most fictionalized. By dancing on that line so deftly, the story can venture into places that might otherwise feel overdone or too unrealistic without ever shifting the tenor of the book out of the possible. It’s no small feat that, and one of the things I most enjoy about the women’s writing.

Here’s hoping there are more books to come!

My review copy was provided via NetGalley. The book releases in the U.S. on January 8, 2019.