Review: Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I received a surprise ARC of this in the mail back in January, so I opted to listen to the audiobook so I could finally read and review it.  This was published in January 2020, and should be available everywhere.

I really enjoyed this. The audio narration is well done and I felt the narrator did a great job expressing Jane's feelings and adding emotion to various situations that may or may not have jumped off the page. I highly recommend the audio.

This is the story of Jane Then and Jane Now as she tries to recover and cope with being held in captivity for 7 months and escaping. She is having a hard time re-establishing herself in her old life, so she starts writing about her experience "then" and what happened to her from the day she was taken and all that she experienced while she was held by the man she calls "the monster". You are reading her journal entries, so this is told in a somewhat epistolary format as she writes entries about her experiences in the present with her friends and family as they try to reconnect with Jane in the here and now, and in the past or what she calls then as she tries to remember everything that happened to her in an attempt to heal from her experience and find herself.

I found this captivating and I didn't want to put it down. I kept opting to put my headphones back in to listen to the story instead of read my other book or do other things because I wanted to know what was going on with Jane. As the story unfolds and we learn more about Jane and her captivity and struggles to cope after she's returned home, I found parts of the plot to be predictable I won't spoil anything, but people who read lots of thrillers like I do will know what I mean. However, I found myself so invested in Jane's story that I wanted to know if I was right or if I was completely off base and there was going to be some other twist. I appreciate that the cast of characters was small and that the pacing of the story was really well done. There is a focus on mental health issues here, which may be triggering for some, and while I thought parts of it were handled unrealistically, who knows what is realistic for a situation like Jane's until it happens to you (which I hope it never does), other parts were handled really well. I particularly liked the parts with Jack and how he supported her without pushing an agenda or trying to figure out how she felt.

I highly recommend this psychological thriller for anyone looking for a fast paced read that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I very much enjoyed it and look forward to reading more by this author!


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