Night Owls -- July 10, 2023

The Night Owls met in July to discuss the book An Anonymous Girl by co-authors Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkenan. Billed as a psychological thriller, the book centers around Jessica Farris, a young make-up artist desperate to earn extra money to help support her disabled sister, and Dr. Lydia Shields, a well-respected psychologist who is leading a morality and ethics research project which Jessica sneaks into in order to become a highly paid test subject. Now referred to as Subject 53, what begins as a simple questionnaire quickly becomes a probing and invasive exploration into Jessica's personal life that ensnares her with Dr. Shields. Soon, Jessica begins to question the true purpose of Dr. Shields' research project, if being manipulated for personal reasons, and what exactly happened to Subject 5?

This is the second book the Night Owls have read by Hendricks and Pekkenan, so members knew that they would be in for twisty turns and psychological suspense. On both of those fronts, the plot delivered. While readers could sort of predict the general direction certain plot points would go, there was just enough of a little twist (how plausible could be debated) to keep them engaged and eager to see how all the little pieces would fall into place by the end. Members of the discussion also noted the authors' effective use of first and second person perspectives for Jessica and Dr. Shields, respectively. It was most effective when reading chapters from Dr. Shields' perspective as if she were addressing the reader directly and manipulating you. 

While the suspense aspect of the book was well-written, other parts of the novel felt a bit far-fetched and really require you, as a reader, to suspend disbelief in order for certain events to happen. However, some members were hard pressed to believe that some of these events would ever escalate to the levels they did in the novel. All in all though, the majority of members enjoyed the book and thought it made for an easy, exhilarating summer read. 

The final average rating was 3.8 out of 5 stars.