Behind Her Eyes: A Suspenseful Psychological Thriller

by Sarah Pinborough

"Only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. David and Adele seem like the ideal pair. He's a successful psychiatrist, she is his picture-perfect wife who adores him. But why is he so controlling? And why is she keeping things hidden? As Louise, David's new secretary, is drawn into their orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong. But Louise can't guess how wrong--and how far a person might go to protect their marriage's secrets. "--

"Destined to the the blockbuster book of 2017, Behind Her Eyes is a psychological thriller with a to-die-for twist for fans of Luckiest Girl Alive and Stephen King"--

• ISBN10: 125011117X
• ISBN13: 9781250111173
• Publish Date: 31 January 2017 (first published 26 January 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 18 May 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Flatiron Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kim Deister]

Reading this book was an experience. It was weirdly addicting and totally consuming. It’s also a book that is difficult to review for fear of spoilers.

The story is complex, with multiple storylines that are told in shifting timelines and from multiple points of view. There are times when the individual storylines seem disconnected, but then they are brought together in a completely unexpected way. It’s a love triangle but one created to be anything but typical.

It’s a book that somewhat defies the single-box genre assignment. It’s a thriller, to be sure. But is it psychological? In part. Is there a whodunit element? Yes, there is. But in truth, there’s very little actual mystery throughout the book. Yet this doesn’t keep the book from being utterly compelling.

Behind Her Eyes is a twisted tale of love and obsession, but told in a very unique way. It’s complex and dark, all things perfect in a thriller!

[pamela]

Behind Her Eyes was very much a book that didn't know quite what it wanted to be. It markets itself as a crime/domestic thriller and glosses over its strong paranormal/horror elements. Because it tries to straddle that line, the book manages to be a poor example of both and really suffers for it.

The thing that draws most people in with Behind Her Eyes is the promise of an amazing, unguessable twist ending. There are, in fact, two twists in the book. The first is obvious if you've been paying attention. The second twist is exactly the same as the first twist, but FUCKING STUPID! Imagine if you were reading Little Red Riding Hood, and instead of the ending it has, it just ended with the words, "and Grandma was an alien," you'll have a good impression of what it was like to get to the end of this book. The twist was unguessable because the narrative had in no way developed toward it along the way. It was lazy sensationalism, and I was absolutely not here for it.

There were certainly moments when Behind Her Eyes gripped me, but on the whole, it was a rather pedestrian story about moronic protagonists with whom I felt no connection. The pace was plodding, and I found myself skipping ahead in a few sections as it got boring. The character motivations were barely explored at all, and because of that, everything just seemed a bit contrived and silly. There are about a million ways that these situations would have played out differently if normal people had been in them without the desperate need to create plot drama.

I started watching the Netflix dramatisation of Behind Her Eyes, which is what made me pick up the book. The show does a much better job of making the characters likeable and creating a sense of drama than the book does, which is really saying something. If you like this style of domestic drama, then it might be worth giving it a go, but overall I feel Pinborough would have been better served deciding on the type of book she wanted to write and commit to the genre. This weird mishmash just didn't work. While other writers have managed to toe that line to great effect (Phil Rickman and John Connolly are perfect examples of this), Pinborough simply didn't do enough worldbuilding or character development to make her plot palatable.

[mrs_mander_reads]

Hands down, the best thriller I've read this year, and maybe of all time. If not all time, then it's definitely right up there with the Gillian Flynn novels that I recommend all the time.
The characters and story is so complex, but not so much that I had trouble remembering details. I love that it moves between timelines and perspectives.
The ending, y'all. I have no words.

This paranormal thriller read like a romance novel. I normally really don't like romance novels, so it was kinda hard for me to enjoy this book at times. There was almost no mystery since everything is told to the reader in advance and you are just waiting for the characters to find out about it.
Having read about this paranormal activity before, I was actually not surprised about how the events turned out. When Adele was talking at the beginning of the book about her stuff, referring to the notebook of her and Rob, I felt really confused when there was no real connection between Adele and the notebook. From that point on, I was hesitant if it was indeed Adele in her body. However, I do believe that if I had not read about 'going out of your own body and into the body of someone else before', I would not have been able to guess that ending.
I was more surprised about the ending with 'Adele' and Louise. I had not expected 'Adele' to take Louise her body, especially because she was so judgemental about it. I thought she would frame Louise for trying to destroy her and make Louise the reason for her almost suicide. When it happened I wasn't shocked, but I had not expected it.

It's a nice book. Nothing special, nothing bad. It's a fast, fun read, just don't expect a story like Gone Girl.

[maggiefan]

So... I have just read "Behind her eyes"... And I don't know how to process this at almost 1 a.m. I am almost sure I will write a review on this book soon, which is not what I usually do (and I want to fix it for sure)! But this book has broken me and left me speechless. Definitely one of my favorite books of the year!

[laurie]

The marketing of the 'big giant twist you'll never see coming' actually ruined this book for me. I spent more time trying to guess it than actually enjoying the book. Taking that anticipation out of the mix, I can't really say I did enjoy the book. I thought Louise was a lot of an idiot and I spent most of the time willing her not to do whatever she was doing. David had very little characterization and was more blah than a believable love interest. And Adele... unsympathetic, though in the grand scheme of things I suppose she was meant to be.

As for that big giant twist, well, I enjoyed this book more when it was called 'Stranger with my Face', so I predicted most of it almost immediately and it was a random very early thought where I hoped it wasn't going to be something stupid like it being ... and of course it was.

The problem with all of these books trying to be Gone Girl is that they lack the original author's skill at characterization and plot. And so they spend so much time hiding the twist that they forget that we're here for the journey not the ending.


See this review and others on my blog.

[Leah]

Behind Her Eyes is one of those books that has been hyped to the max on Twitter – with its own publishers touting the #WTFThatEnding hashtag (If I used a hashtag, do I need to say hashtag? IDEK). It’s not my kind of marketing scheme, because it kind of promotes skipping the whole book and reading the last page, but it IS effective, because here I am, having read the book, talking about the book and that ending is very much worthy of the #WTFThatEnding hashtag, because just when I thought it was all over and done with, boom, it so wasn’t. I applaud Sarah Pinborough’s imagination and writing ability because she pulled that off so incredibly well. There were no hints at all at what was really going on, and I’ve genuinely never been more surprised by a plot twist.

Before you get to the ending, though, there’s still over 375 other pages to read and to really get the full effect of that ending, you really do need to read them. Because they are amazing. I devoured over 200 of them in two hours, and I literally had to force myself to stop so I could go to work, but I would have happily finished this in one sitting, had I had the opportunity. It was just intoxicating. It didn’t feel like you were reading the book, because the pages just flew by and the pace was at full throttle throughout. For once, a rarity in a thriller, we have two narrators who actually seemed quite competent. Louise liked a drink (in fact, she liked a drink so much, I thought it was going to become an issue) and Adele had her moments, but all in all, I actually trusted them both (#whatafool). I never felt they were leading me up the garden path (#whatanevenbiggerfool) and I liked them both as narrators.

The story itself is fairly simple – girl meets man, man is married, girl works for man, they become involved, girl then makes friends with his wife. Basically Louise is the middle of a very bizarre game of piggy in the middle and Louise doesn’t tell David or Adele that she knows the other. While that may sound unreal, it’s actually super compelling, because it makes for a great narrative, because it’s just all happening. Louise is trying to be a good friend to Adele, but she feels something for David, and then there’s all this subtext about what mind have happened the night Adele’s parents died and what the hell went on with Adele’s friend Rob? And it’s just so compelling. I actually think I preferred Adele to Louise (what the hell does that say about me eh? Eh? Eh?) if only because I knew there was something up, and she hints to things she’s controlling, but I liked that about her. Louise actually got on my nerves, like an insistent fly.

Really what makes Behind Her Eyes is how it all comes together. It’s so masterful, so intense, so incredibly unbelievable that you have to keep reading because surely that isn’t how it’s going to go?!! Not that I saw for a second how it was going to go. BUT IT WAS AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE. I only get excited about books I really love and I’ve struggled recently with thrillers, feeling like they’re all the same, but this is brand new, compelling and just plain nuts. It genuinely amazes me how authors come up with such compelling stories and even more incredible plot twists. Sarah Pinborough has read the thriller of 2017, I dare any story to even try to come close to how absolutely astounding Behind Her Eyes was. I will never, ever forget this story. And even if I did forget the story, that ending will stay with me forever, I swear.

All I can say is wow! This was a page turner for me, and even though I felt the characters were a bit flat, it was thoroughly entertaining. I didn't care for David, and I didn't understand why everyone seemed so obsessed with him. Louise was also frustrating because she made such stupid choices, particularly in the end. Regardless, I couldn't put the book down.