An Anonymous Girl

4/5 Stars

Coming out of 2018, one of my favorite reads was The Wife Between Us, by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkan. I mean I loved this book. So upon choosing my Book of the Month for December, I jumped at the chance to get An Anonymous Girl.

This story follows Jessica, a 28-year-old makeup artist who, quite frankly, is not the most financially stable. In fact, she's struggling pretty hard with money. When one of her more privileged clients shrugs off the opportunity to collect the $500 from a psych study, Jessica immediately crafts a plan to obtain the place in the study and ultimately, the money. Claiming that the original participant sent her as a replacement, Jessica finds herself in a 2-hour-long study calling for 18-32-year-old women. She figures by completing a few questions, that she will collect the money and go on her merry way. However, the questionnaire isn't as peachy keen as she anticipated. The questions start to become more invasive, more personalized to her experiences. Jessica definitely has that weird gut feeling that something is a bit...off about the questionnaire but she brushes it off, hopeful upon completion.

Soon after completion of the study, she is invited back to complete a follow-up portion. The study continues, and soon she is tasked with dressing a certain way, acting a certain way, etc. all as part of the “study”. What Jessica does not know is that Dr. Shields has taken a personal leave from work to focus only on her; that she's being used as bait for Dr. Shields's own relationship insecurities. As Jessica starts to get deeper into Dr. Shields's confines, she starts to question whether or not she can trust the doctor's motives or not.

Now this story definitely kept me flipping through pages. (Fun fact: this was also my first completed read of 2019!). Hendricks and Pekkan sure do know how to craft an eerie thriller. Again, I tend to compare a good thriller to Lifetime movies (I know that does not say much for some, but there's definitely some eerie thrillers on Lifetime). I liked that within the first 100 pages, Dr. Shields's creepiness and darker motives started to surface. I felt as though the pace of this book was spot-on; there was not too many slower points, or points where I felt as though the authors skimmed over any significant details. I did, however, find myself lost at one or two points when there was references to the past “victim”. If I were to recommend one of this duo's books, it would definitely be The Wife Between Us.