Laura Sims | LOOKER

Plot (via Goodreads):

In this taut and thrilling debut, an unraveling woman, unhappily childless and recently separated, becomes fixated on her neighbor—the actress. The unnamed narrator can’t help noticing with wry irony that, though she and the actress live just a few doors apart, a chasm of professional success and personal fulfillment lies between them. The actress, a celebrity with her face on the side of every bus, shares a gleaming brownstone with her handsome husband and their three adorable children, while the narrator, working in a dead-end job, lives in a run-down, three-story walk-up with her ex-husband’s cat.

When an interaction with the actress at the annual block party takes a disastrous turn, what began as an innocent preoccupation spirals quickly, and lethally, into a frightening and irretrievable madness. Searing and darkly witty, Looker is enormously entertaining—at once a propulsive Hitchcockian thriller and a fearlessly original portrait of the perils of envy.

Review:

At a little less than 200 pages, Looker is a short novel that packs a heavy punch. Initially going into this one, I was expecting something more or less of a Hitcockian thriller with some heavy stalker themes, but that was not the case. What I got was even more terrifying than a novel about a stalker, I got a brutally honest and rather saddening portrayal of a woman who is losing everything and her fascination with a woman who has it all. 

While at times she was a little much, I absolutely loved the narrator with this novel. She had me cackling, concerned at times, and overall entertained following through her life as her psyche and self-control really began to unravel. One thing that I found mesmerizing was how the pacing of her breakdown was done brilliantly; in the beginning, it seems like she's just having a rough day and by the end I was ready to call in some heavy duty help for the poor woman. This one definitely is sprinkled with some suspenseful scenes and those moments we all love in a fictional tale when we tell our narrator "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you...", but they do and we bask in the entertainment of it all anyway. 

So, if you're looking for a perfect character study that is deliciously entertaining and darkly comedic with a hint of a thriller, this is the perfect read to consume in one sitting. From the opening paragraph down to the perfectly skillful ending, this is one that will stay with you much longer than it took to complete. 

Special thanks to Scribner for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5