The Girl Before

2.5/5 Stars

One Folgate Street is not your ordinary home. It comes with a very specific set of rules that the occupant MUST adhere to - no questions asked. Edward Monkford - owner and architect of One Folgate - carefully chooses the occupants and is quite frankly, a sociopath. He's insanely controlling and has a pattern of seducing the occupants and falling in love with them. This book got quite erotic quite quickly and I honestly was not prepared for it. It was like 50 Shades of Gray-esque with a hint of thriller, but not a healthy mix of both. It was like a roller coaster of sexually innuendos and, well, sex that heightened toward the middle of the story and then faded out toward the end of the book. I was actually a bit bashful reading this, as 1) I'm not too into eroticas and 2) I was sitting on the train reading this during my commute and I swore the commuters next to me were reading over my shoulder, judging me. However, I did appreciate the thriller aspect of this, as I typically do in my bookish picks. There was a touch of mystery and suspense, as we try to piece together what had happened to Emma. I would say that this was a quick read, being that it flipped between characters Jane and Emmas' POVs quite frequently. However, I was not blown away by the writing or the overall story. I felt as though there were a lot of loose threads and that the story just kind of ended. There was a minor plot twist right at the very end, but not the kind of plot twist that blows your socks off, just an “oh interesting” type twist. Overall I don't say that this would be in my top 5 recommendations to anyone, whatever the preference.