Fictional Women Beware

by Paul Birkhead  Rowan Public Library


      If you’re a character in a literary work, and a woman, watch out.  You could be in mortal danger.  I’ve noticed several books coming and going from Rowan Public Library and they all have hinted at how perilous a time it is for female book characters.  If you’re brave enough, come into the library and check out these alarming titles.

      Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has been out for several years now and has even been made into a movie.  From the moment the book hit the shelves, it was very popular and library patrons couldn’t get enough of the story of Nick and Amy Dunn.  The Dunns are getting ready to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy suddenly disappears.  As the reader learns more about the troubled couple, it’s not clear if Nick should be consoled or convicted of murder.  There are definitely some plot twists that will shock you and keep you turning the pages.

      The clever turns in Gone Girl left readers hungry for similar titles and several authors were happy to oblige.  The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins enjoyed its own popularity and was also made into a movie.  The book’s protagonist is Rachel Watson, a thirty-something divorcee who rides the same train and looks out the same window on her daily commute.  Rachel’s loneliness and frequent drunkenness causes her to imagine she knows the couple she sees in the house across the tracks.  When that woman disappears, can Rachel find out what happened or did she even exist in the first place?

      The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware is a psychological thriller set on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean.  The main character is Laura ‘Lo’ Blacklock, a writer for a British magazine, who is reporting on the inaugural cruise of the boat.  Meeting the woman in the cabin next door doesn’t seem like a memorable event until a woman’s body is thrown overboard from that same cabin and no one besides Lo had ever seen her.  Lo attempts to solve the mystery, but being tipsy and over-medicated makes that difficult and could even cause her to become the next victim.

      Yet another title with a lonely, inebriated woman in danger is The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn.  The setting this time is a New York City brownstone where Anna Fox lives as a recluse with a few bad habits.  Anna likes to watch old movies, drink too much, and spy on her neighbors.  In a very Rear Window-ish plot, Anna sees something through her binoculars one night that sets some dangerous events in motion.  Soon, her insulated world starts to crumble.

      If these book titles have piqued your interest, come into Rowan Public Library and check them out.  They are available in regular and large print and most are in CD and electronic format as well.