Book Review: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

I read After She Wrote Him by Sulari Gentill in 2020, which was one of the most ―no, most unique and fascinating reads ever! One of my favourites. That was the main reason I requested this book on Netgalley. And I was not disappointed at all.

The book starts with a letter to a writer. Next, the writer is trying to focus on her manuscript, sitting in a library. She keeps looking at the ceiling, and then her attention shifts to three people sitting close by ―Heroic Chin, Handsome Man and Freud Girl ―as she calls them and plans to use these characters in her novel. 

Suddenly, they hear a woman scream. A blood curdling scream. The scream breaks the ice and the four people begin to talk. Bewildered, they leave the library, like everybody else, and go to a coffee shop and have coffee together, even decide to meet the next day. 

The chapter ends with this line ― 'And so we go to the Map Room to find a friendship, and I have my first coffee with a killer.'

Before you start the next chapter, you read another letter, and then you realise that the library story is a novel within a novel.

Later, the writer finds out through a news channel that a dead body (of a woman) was found in the library. 

So, who is that woman who died in the library? Who killed her? Why and how?

The story within a story may sound a bit confusing but it's not. It's intriguing, unique and interesting. Mainly because of the neat and skilled narration. 

The writing style is engaging, the execution clever. Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, so the mystery keeps you on the edge. I'm quite fascinated by the author's (Sulari Gentill) writing style and creativity.

The characters (now close friends) ―Frieddie (the main writer), Cain (the handsome man, also a writer), Marigold (the Freud girl, a psychology student) and Whit (the Heroic Chin, a law student who doesn't want to get his degree) ― are very interesting, but unreliable (except for the narrator because the novel is written in the first person). As the story progresses, your suspicion keeps shifting, thus making the story unpredictable till the end.

'It makes sense that I would love a man I believe in, surely. But does being in love compromise that judgement?'

The character who writes letters to the author who is actually writing this library story (you never get to know her except that her name is Hannah), an aspiring writer and the author's beta reader, is also a very interesting and eccentric character. 

It's one of those books that you could finish in a single sitting. It travelled with me to the kitchen. I stayed awake till the morning to finish this book. It felt wonderful to read such an engrossing story.

Overall, it was one of the most unique, cleverly-crafted, mysterious and gripping books I have ever read! My favourite this year.