Overall thoughts
I have this unverified assumption that when a book is being made into a movie/series, that must mean the book is good and therefore, worth reading. It makes logical sense, right? Producers who, I assume, understand the general public must have done a lot of research to conclude that this book is worth the investment. Being part of that ‘general public’, I surrender my judgments to them and allow them to make the call.
I’m not saying that Behind Her Eyes was an exception or a failure of this system, necessarily, but I think it’s one of the cases where I ended up being misled because of that fact.
Sarah Pinborough is a talented writer and certainly not a careless one—I felt that most (if not all) of the plot points were explained and there were no loose ends that left me with questions. It was a pretty good read—I liked the prose, the characters had distinctive voices and the pace was solid.
Things I learned
Importance of an internal monologue
Writing an internal monologue is something I struggle with, so it was nice to see how the author executed it. I notice that I tend to skip out on (important) internal monologue or create ones that are too ‘polished’.
In this story, Louise spends a lot of time in her head. I wouldn’t have done this with my characters, in fear that the readers would get bored. But reading this, I think ‘messy’ monologues that aren’t linear feels more human and highlights a character’s personality.
The time/pace in which a main character and reader processes a new piece of information should be relatively in sync
The main character is the vessel through which readers process the plot. This is obvious but sometimes when a character ‘mulls’ over something that the reader has already gotten over or feels has been discussed enough, or glazes over something that the reader feels is not fully processed yet, there’s that gap in the pace in which the character and the readers ‘walk’ through the story. This causes readers to grow tired of the character (when they’re too slow), or think the characters are unrealistic or desensitized (if they’re too fast).
I don’t necessarily mean this for parts where the character is trying to piece together a mystery because that often uses logic and deduction skills which is (kinda) more objective. When it comes to processing revelations or new events, I think one job for writers is to perfect the pace in which it is processed and eventually accepted by the characters.
Predicted plot twists*
*or story progression (because some of these are not really plot twists)
David is innocent / not a killer
Obviously, this is not a plot twist, but it’s such a sure thing to the point it became annoying to hear Louise (or Stephanie) harp on about her suspicions towards him. As a reader, it makes me want to yell at her to move on.
This story also reminded me of the Housemaid (SPOILER for the Housemaid if you haven’t read it), where the plot twist was that the antagonist was the husband and not the wife. (Despite not being a huge fan of the Housemaid) It works because the only POV we’re getting is from the housemaid herself (before the twist)—we only had one recollection of events to analyse from.
Though with this one, we know from the get-go (ish) that Adele’s the antagonist from Adele’s POV. This means that there is no room for speculation (since she herself explicitly states that she is manipulating Louise). Then I was worried that it was going to be revealed that David was the antagonist (or at least not 100% innocent), which would’ve sucked because it would’ve felt cheap and anticlimactic. Not to mention, it’s not much of a twist if the main character suspected it (basically) the whole time. Luckily, that was not the case.
Louise and Adele switching bodies
It’s unfair for me to say I predicted this, because I didn’t, but I’m still going to include it in the list because it was one of those things were I would’ve predicted it if I had expanded my view of the realm of possibilities within this story. When I thought of them switching bodies (or even when I suspected that Adele knew about the affair through astral projection), I dismissed it almost immediately because surely not…
I guess at the end of the day it brings up the question of whether or not books have to explicitly disclose their genre. I get that disclosing the fact that this book has elements of supernatural in it would ruin the twist, but if you have to hide the genre (which can be roughly considered a clue) in order for the twist to hit, doesn’t that say something about the coherence of the story?
Notes:
I was shocked when it was revealed that this whole time, it was Rob. Some people might find it to be a stretch, layering one twist (of the same ‘nature’, if that makes sense) on top of another twist, but I think it redeemed the story and eased my disappointment with the whole hidden genre thing. I enjoyed that part and gasped a little bit.
Clues (or details) I liked
The watch and the well
I appreciated that with every piece of item that eventually became a clue, we got to spend time with it before it became one.
Rob’s diary entries
Personally, the author nailed Rob’s voice and I never would’ve guessed his involvement in the story. Though, in my defense, me not thinking this was supernatural in any shape or form played a big part in me dismissing his character’s potential involvement. Regardless, the diary entries sold his whole personality and made it believable when the final twist was revealed. I didn’t think it was far-fetched that he latched onto David that quick, because the diary consistently showed that he is capable of being obsessive with a person.
Notes:
A clue I did not like was the way Louise found out that Adele was lying about never having seen the second door. She jumped into conclusions with that one and she was lucky it was the right conclusion but realistically, there were a dozen other explanations that would be more reasonable than what she came up with.