Title: An Anonymous Girl
Authors: Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller
First Publication: 2019
Language: English
Major Characters: Dr. Lydia Shields, Thomas, Jessica “Jess” Farris, Becky,
Theme: Relationship; Assumptions
Narrator: First person from Jessica and Dr Shields’ point of view
Book Summary: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Looking to earn some easy cash, Jessica Farris agrees to be a test subject in a psychological study about ethics and morality. But as the study moves from the exam room to the real world, the line between what is real and what is one of Dr. Shields’s experiments blurs.
Dr. Shields seems to know what Jess is thinking… and what she’s hiding.
Jessica’s behavior will not only be monitored, but manipulated.
Caught in a web of attraction, deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.
Book Review: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
The Wife Between Us by these Hendricks and Pekkanen is my favorite thriller of 2018, and I had high expectations for An Anonymous Girl. Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks have topped themselves with this smashing effort. An Anonymous Girl is written how all thrillers should be, with page-turning, effortless writing, and characters that keep you on your toes. A villain like no other. A fallible but relatable victim.
It’s more than a little treacherous to steer your ship with a broken moral compass. Navigating through the raging waters of life leaves many a shipwreck in the aftermath.
Jessica Farris knows this first hand. She’s a twenty-eight year old makeup artist still trying to find her niche in New York City. She struggles to pay the rent on her studio apartment and her bookings from BuzzBeauty are hit or miss. Finding extra money to send home to her parents and special needs sister is coming up short each month.
“We all have reasons for our judgments, even if those reasons are so deeply buried we don’t recognize them ourselves.”
While at one of her beauty sessions, Jess overhears one of the girls regreting an early Saturday morning appointment with a university professor, Dr. Lydia Shields, who is running a volunteer lab on ethics and morality. The first pay-out is $500. A no brainer and Jess shows up in her place. Our girl is in the door. Alone in a room, Jess hovers over the computer screen answering questions about being untruthful in life. The questions begin simply and then escalate in intensity. Certain scenarios are set up and Jess must answer either honestly or how she assumes the good doctor expects.
As the pay checks roll in, Jess sinks deeper and deeper into Dr. Shields’ world. She is called upon to complete tasks outside of the lab. And here is where Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen excel. The motivating factors are laid out with the reader in mind. We ask ourselves just how far and how deep would we get involved here? What motivates us in our own lives to make the moral choices that we do? Is there ever a line drawn and set in concrete or is it a movable barrier depending on odd circumstances? Is bartering an option?
“Every lifetime contains pivot points—sometimes flukes of destiny, sometimes seemingly preordained—that shape and eventually cement one’s path.”
The main character of Jess is a winner with the writing reflecting her dilemmas in decision-making opportunities. Peeling back the layers of Dr. Shields and others will keep you glued to this storyline.
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is a compelling, thrilling, twisted, and rapid-paced read that was so darn entertaining and exciting to read. The intensity level of this novel was so high that my thoughts and feelings never wavered once while reading this book.
Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen delivers quite the fascinating, intriguing, suspenseful and well-written read here with great characters, a unique premise and an extremely enthralling storyline. There was this deep suspenseful undertone to this novel that gets more exciting, intriguing and intense as the novel progressed.
