Rating: 4/5
Review: So I’ve seen the reviews for The Perfect Stranger and they’re fairly mixed. With a lot people who have read the author’s previous book, All The Missing Girls, being left disappointed. Lucky for me I haven’t read Megan Miranda’s other adult thriller so I was left impressed with this latest book. I mean wow, to me The Perfect Stranger was a super twisty and drama filled read that I spent the past two afternoons thoroughly enjoying.
It’s about a journalist, Leah, who moves to rural Pennsylvania to live in a cabin in the woods with her roommate, Emmy. It all goes wrong pretty quickly though. A woman who looks just like Leah is found half dead at a nearby lake and then Emmy goes missing. All that’s worrying enough right? But there’s more! Emmy doesn’t have a phone or family or any other friends or any digital footprint. So the police start to suspect that she doesn’t even exist! I mean wtf would you do if the people, who you needed to help you, started to not believe you?!
The Perfect Stranger jumps right into all this good stuff and had me hooked after only a couple of chapters. It managed to keep me hooked right the way through too! The main reason for this being Miranda’s writing style which has just the right amount of detail. And with each chapter she increases the suspense and adds more layers to the original mystery. There are some “red herrings” though that do try to throw you off but that just added to the fun for me.
Leah, the main character, handles this terrifying situation amazingly well. In fact, she handles both her unfortunate past and herself well too. She’s honestly a brilliant and complex character and I’m so happy that we see the whole story from just her perspective. However, you do have to be patient. The author keeps Leah’s past mostly a mystery and only reveals small snippets at a time of what happened to her. But by the time the story starts getting closer to the climatic end, she’s a fully developed character who I’m sure most people will be happy to cheer on.
Speaking of the end, I can happily tell you that it is immensely satisfying. All the mysteries that have built up over the course of the story are explained. All the characters’ secrets and motives have been revealed. Which is great, because I personally cannot stand to be left in the dark when it comes to thrillers. I don’t read them to guess at what might have been going on. I read them specifically for the worthwhile and rewarding twists.
Overall, The Perfect Stranger is a perfect thriller. The type that you NEED to free up a whole afternoon and evening for, get cosy in bed/on the sofa with a cup of tea, and just relax with.
Have any of you read The Perfect Stranger or All The Missing Girls? What did you think?
(Huge thank you to Readers First for providing me with a copy of The Perfect Stranger to review)
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