mood music: High – tove lo
The ending of this book was so annoying. I have made a decision that going forward, any new book I pick up that contains the tropes of a loner female protagonist with substance abuse issues and a dead parent, I am not finishing it. I blame The Girl on the Train.
Vivian Perry is a theatre critic in NYC; she’s a failed theatre actress who now reviews the very plays she wanted to be a part of. She survives the day-to-day with a diet consisting of copious amounts of benzos and hard liquor, the author takes care to inform the reader that this woman does not eat more than 2 bites of food per meal. She’s a walking mess and a very selfish person who uses those around her for personal gain. Her mom died when she was in college, and her way of coping with her death was to spiral into addiction. It’s gotten so bad that the very friend who got her hooked on pills tells her that she needs to get her shit together and get over her self-pity. But this is just the B-plot of this book.
The A-plot surrounds the disappearance of a guy, whose name I don’t remember because I don’t care, who asked Vivian for an interview as part of his senior thesis. This guy disappears after their initial meeting, and she takes it upon herself to find him, for whatever reason. I am going to spoil this book because I don’t think anyone should have the misfortune of reading it.
Spoilers Below
After speaking with a private investigator hired by the missing guy’s girlfriend, going undercover at the office of the gambling website where he used to work, and stalking his residence, it turns out that this guy is not missing. This was one huge prank that he’d played on Vivian. Everything from the dead body she found in Washington Square Park to the office where the private investigator worked was part of this master plan. Everyone she interacted with who “knew” him was a hired actor. And you might be asking why he decided to do this to Vivian. Well, because years ago she gave one of his plays a bad review, and he didn’t take that too well. He took it so badly that he decided to stalk her, film her while she was home without her knowledge, and play this weird psychological game on Vivian.
Don’t read this. It was bad. The writing was comparable to Colleen Hoover, if that explains anything.