Hello fellow bookworms, I’m here to bring you my review of The Face At The Window by Ruby Speechley, published on the 28th July 2021 by Hera Books. And you can read the synopsis on Goodreads here.
A big thank you to NetGalley and Hera Books for the ARC of this one to read and review!
Overall rating – 3 out of 5 stars.
TRIGGER WARNING – Domestic violence. This topic is heavily featured in this story, so please be aware before searching out this book and reading my review.
This book was just not it for me, it didn’t do anything wrong as such it just wasn’t as good as I was expecting… Individual aspects of this story were brilliant, but as a whole book it just missed the mark. The Face At The Window was good, but it just wasn’t good enough.
The plot could have worked so well, if the author just focused on the idea of a woman scorned and the baby being taken from his Mother, but it kind of drifted away from that as we got deeper into the story. To the point where I felt the ending could have been a completely different book, it added no value whatsoever to the rest of the story.
There was a point far earlier where the book where it could have naturally been concluded, that I thought would have made the book better.
I also guessed pretty much the entire basis for the plot within the first couple of chapters, it was glaringly obvious and I felt really disappointed by how easy it was to figure out where the story was headed.
I just wasn’t intrigued by this book, in the way I thought I would be, but I think that comes from having guessed the basis of the story early on. If that was hidden better I think I would have felt differently.
The writing style did elevate my feelings towards this book though, the author clearly has a flair for building up the atmosphere and the tension. I did feel anxious reading this book, and it really pulled at my heartstrings when I thought about everything that Gemma was going through.
Plus,. the two POV did add an extra layer to the story that I enjoyed, it did prevent the book from becoming stagnant, which it could easily have done, given that in Gemma’s POV there wasn’t a lot going on.
Character wise, Gemma was possibly the only character that I warmed to throughout the story, she felt real and relatable. But the others, Nick especially, were just irritating and in Nick’s case, downright dickheads. Because the book was split between two POV it did mean I didn’t enjoy the book that much, as I found Scarlett’s chapters to be far less enjoyable.
I thought that the author could have also introduced the minor characters more as well, we were left to fill in the gaps a lot with Becca (Gemma’s friend) and Amy (Scarlett’s friend). The author could have focused more on introducing them to the story than other aspects.
Especially as towards the end of the story it started to feel like it was two separate books, almost as if the author was trying to justify the way Scarlett behaved… It just felt like it didn’t fit with the rest of the story, or the blurb for that matter.
I wanted so badly to love this book but I just couldn’t. The writing of the main story was good, but with the whole plot being given away early in the story and annoying characters it definitely had areas to improve.
Let me know if you’ve read this one and what you thought in the comments!
Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 