the girl before // jp delaney

published: 2017

pages: 336

isbn: 9780425285046

read: 3/30 to 4/5/2017 (but it was like a few minutes after midnight soooo...)

rating: 1// didn't like it 2// it was okay 3// i liked it 

           4// i really liked it 5// it was awesome 6// I loved it

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"My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat - or in film's case "run on" - manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing." 

Andy Warhol

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SYNOPSIS

Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.

The request seems odd, even intrusive—and for the two women who answer, the consequences are devastating.

EMMA
Reeling from a traumatic break-in, Emma wants a new place to live. But none of the apartments she sees are affordable or feel safe. Until One Folgate Street. The house is an architectural masterpiece: a minimalist design of pale stone, plate glass, and soaring ceilings. But there are rules. The enigmatic architect who designed the house retains full control: no books, no throw pillows, no photos or clutter or personal effects of any kind. The space is intended to transform its occupant—and it does.

JANE
After a personal tragedy, Jane needs a fresh start. When she finds One Folgate Street she is instantly drawn to the space—and to its aloof but seductive creator. Moving in, Jane soon learns about the untimely death of the home’s previous tenant, a woman similar to Jane in age and appearance. As Jane tries to untangle truth from lies, she unwittingly follows the same patterns, makes the same choices, crosses paths with the same people, and experiences the same terror, as the girl before.

MY THOUGHTS

uhm.....i still have some unanswered questions and i can't really ask them here because they're kind of spoiler-ish...so ill ask in the spoilers. 

BUT. 

this book. 

i mean, i liked it. 

can i be 100% honest with y'all? I'm a HUGE chicken. HUGE!!!! i can't do scary movies or anything like that cause i freak out. I'm 29 years old and i have never seen The Exorcist. 

anyway, i think the reason it took me so long to read this book was because I'd only read so much before i got scared about what i thought was going to happen so i wouldn't read it past like 8 pm. because i was scared. lol. 

this has made me realize that i miiiiight not be ready to read The Shining yet. 

uhm, it's weird cause this book is on both ends either you like it (love it) or you completely hate it and for me, I'm on the "i liked it" side with fear that later on down the line, i might realize that i did in fact not like it as much. so, idk there but it's safe to say that for now, i liked it. 

it's told in the Then (Emma) and Now (Jane) form and i liked it because this time around the 'now' basically touches base on what the 'then' would be about kind of almost every chapter. 

it's not a spoiler because it says it on the synopsis so you know that someone is dead, i just didn't expect that plot twist. and then, once i thought "okay, home girl has it figured out", BOOM! another. 

so, the person who did it, wasn't the person who i expected. and that thing with the sleeping bag...inneresting. 

i think what i can see as being a turn off for this book would be the ending. 

that shit Jane pulled? uhm, what? 

maybe because it was past midnight and i was kinda falling asleep and i just wanted to get it over with but, wtf did she do? 

and who the ef is the last chapter based on? 

i think this book is disliked because it leaves a lot of questions up in the air. 

more than i care to admit. 

i should mention that this book has some sexual references (another plot twist i didn't see). 

for some reason, it's compared to 50 shades of Grey and uhm, no. 

i don't see why. i don't want to say that it was okay or better, just that there is no comparison. ultimately, i feel that 50 shades ended up (and started as) a love story, where as this didn't. it was just adults enjoying rough sex without commitment which we all know went out the window in like the first 30 sentences of 50 shades of Grey.

anyway...spoilers below!

thanks for reading. 

#lesreads on IG

SPOILERS

tun tun tuuun!!!!!

Emma moves into 1FS (i aint trying to spell that out every 5 mins) with Simon after a break-in at their home. 

he's not for it but whatever she wants. 

Jane moves in because she gave birth to a stillborn baby and couldn't afford to live at her place since the company she works for gave her a year off and she couldn't go back because the temp was locked in for a year so she quit and ended up finding this place. 

you cant take shit into this house. LIKE ANNNNYYYTHING!

no books, no throw pillows, blankets, trinkets, mementos, kids, animals. anything.

yet they both go for it because they want a clean slate. 

(personally, hell the fuck no. and not only that but the house has 200 stipulations.....i mean, come on!) 

and now, lets do it by names cause otherwise, I'll be here all day. 

EMMA

Emma moves in with Simon after she was burglarized in her home while Simon was out. 

she doesn't feel safe so they start looking. after many failed attempts their agent mentions 1FS and they go see it, she falls in love and they move in. 

she finally feels safe. 

the cops that are helping her manage to find the perpetrator and on him they find her cellphone where there is a video of her going down on the guy but in a very aggressively sexual manner. 

so she says it was him (Dean Nelson), that he raped her and then it's basically going to go to trial. 

then the cops hold a formal meeting for her and it turns out that it couldn't have been DN that made that video because he has medical proof that he wasn't able to perform that act. (wtf that means, unless he has like a vagina or some shit, i don't know. i mean there could be other medical reasons but what am i? a doctor?) that and basically they bust houses and keep porn related items with them and nowhere in the video is he seen. 

and since she's lied about certain things she's now discredited. 

and also, no other woman has came forward with accusations in regards to the claims that she's making.

QUESTION: what is the medical condition? (that's just more me being nosy) 

but also, according to the cop on this case DN was already a really bad guy who was already into shit that they couldn't get him for. if he was going to get away why make him so bad but so untouchable? 

by this point, she's broken up with Simon, has been messing around with Edward (the guy who approves who can move into the home), has been arrested and threatened by one of Nelson's guys and basically revealed that she's a psycho. 

bitch is crazy!

QUESTION: if Dean Nelson, wasn't the murderer, who was the guy making threats at her? was that still a homie of Nelson's or...? 

THEN IT'S REVEALED THAT THE DUDE IN HER VIDEO IS ACTUALLY HER BEST FRIENDS HUSBAND!!!!!! and Simon's best friend as well. 

she pretends to be this like fragile woman so men can take care of her but in reality she is fucking crazy. 

shes screwing her best friends husband because besides being a sleazebag, he gives her that rough stuff that she likes. 

except that when the video took place, he had drugged her and basically raped her. 

he recorded it and sent it to her. i don't know if he threatened her with it but she never said anything so when the window opened to blame someone else, she took it. 

(when Jane talks to Simon, he says that it was all her. but according to Simon, Saul (best friends husband) buys the girls champagne to hide the taste of a roofie, so there's something she learned.)

QUESTION: in the book, it states that Saul is, fuck how can i say this...., African? Black? idk hes not white....but anyway, in the video, there is no trace of his face or anything that would give him away. its never stated whether Dean Nelson was also Black or his ethnicity BUT i mean, its a video, so if Saul's black then his penis is well, also black.....wasn't that sort of a give away that it wasn't DN? assuming hes not black as well. 

so I'm just assuming that he was in order for that whole scenario to work out. 

anyway.....so she decides to tell Edward everything because he's always rescuing her and also because she's learned how to push his buttons to the point that he reacts violently towards her, which is what she wants. 

buuut he breaks up with her and she goes on her crazy starve herself mode (that she started at the age of 14 with her parents). she tries messaging him again and he agrees to go over. 

so she goes up to shower and wait for him when the house starts to falter a little bit (i mean, don't you remember that one Disney movie? what good can come of it!?) tun tun TUN!!! 

turns out it was Simon that killed her. 

he never erased his code (bad part on the people that run that place that never removed him) and he was sneaking in to sleep in the space where all the cleaning supplies are kept (which Jane later on found out but thought it belonged to Emma). one night when she fell asleep, he took her phone and switched out Edward's number with his disposable phones number

basically, he matched her fucken crazy. he couldn't bare the thought of her picking Edward over him. he was over good guys always finishing last to dicks like Edward. 

so anyway, he pushes her off the stairs and she dies riiiight away. 

(there are no rails for the stairs or any backs to them...they're basically just floating steps.)

she was wearing a necklace that Edward had given her that Simon had managed to snap so he went back up and hid all evidence. since he was interfering with the entire home system there was no footage to convict him. (which he later on did to Jane as well so she couldn't call for help but also made for a hellavu scene for when she goes off on Edward's partner.)

he was arrested eventually but because he had that 'good sweetheart i love Emma' way about him, they let him go. 

but also because Emma cried wolf, they only arrested him to make it look like the cops were doing their job after being duped by Emma so bad. (who by the way got away with a slap on the wrist because all sorts of implications.) 

QUESTION: did he hide in the crawl space after he cleaned up or did he walk out of the house by the time the cops got there? (i don't remember how long it was before they found her.)

so that's that. Emma is crazy, she was sleeping with Edward and she got murdered by the guy she was too tired of because he was TOO nice, Simon. 

man, that was a hell of a twist. i didn't expect her to be as crazy as she turned out to be. 

so i definitely liked that part. 

JANE

Jane moves in after having a stillbirth and not being able to afford her place and quitting her job. 

everything is going fine and of course, Edward makes a move on her as well. 

by now, even though there is no known "pattern" of the people he allows to move in, i should note that he only takes in women who look like his deceased wife. 

just so he can basically hook up with them. 

(but he actually did fall in love with Emma -___-)

QUESTION: what happened to Edwards "stalker?" 

anyway, i forgot how she finds out about Elizabeth but she does and starts doing her research on Emma's death and boils it down to 9 freaking people -_____-

I'm already over all of this, so to cut it short....

she hooks up with Edward and she ends up getting pregnant by him. 

she confides in Simon that she finally thinks he's right that it was Edward that killed Emma and shows him the pearl she found in the shower.  

to which Simon kinda freaks out over. she also got the same necklace from Edward and after seeing that all 3 rows all have 24 pearls, she realizes that "oh!, shit, it's Simon that's the killer". she runs away from him after asking him to leave the house and he finally breaks character and tells her that he was indeed the one who did it (not like, directly). since she won't come out, he throws lighter fluid all over where she's at and she continues to retreat higher into the space. 

once up there, she finds the box of Isabel's stuff (her deceased daughter) and realizes that she needs to fight. since she has the beads, she breaks them up and finally comes out. 

by this point, Simon's gone crazy and starts calling her Jane and Emma and telling her that she needs to love him. she plays along and tells him that they should shower so they can lay in bed and that she's going to go get a robe. he runs up to turn on the water and then comes back down. 

she tries to make a run for it and he grabs her by the hair (at this point they're on the stairs) she turns to face him and throws the beards at him and then pushes him or idk...and he slips on the beads and dies the same way Emma did. 

Jane picks up all the beads off the floor and then it goes to her giving birth. 

originally the baby was supposed to be born with down syndrome but a test gave her negative results so she decided to keep the baby. 

but it turns out the baby does indeed have DS. 

she tells Edward that she had planned for him to be the baby's father and then some other bullshit that leads Edward to tell her that if she gives the baby up for adoption she can keep 1 Folgate Street for her to do with whatever she pleases and that they can definitely try for another child. (he's amazed at how she ended up controlling him)

i think she chooses the baby cause it says something about showing him all of his sisters things. 

she says she needs to get whatever she can from Edward so...

QUESTION: did she take 1FS from Edward somehow? did she "give up" the baby to take him for what she wanted and then did something to him and get the baby back or...what? 

and then it ends with Astrid being the new tenant (erm, well, soon to be). she's divorced her husband and is looking for a new place to start. 

she loves the idea of 1FS street. 

QUESTION: who the ef is Astrid? 

how in the hell do you find that kinda living comforting. i get the like simplicity of it but to live in a home that says you can't have anything that you might want to take and i mean okay whatever. but it wasnt just that. Edward was always intruding. 

he went as far as being mad because there were water marks on the shower door or because the spices were not in abc order or just like all sorts of little ass things.....

any who, that's about it. 

there's still a lot i left it out but basically, this is the gist of it. 

i feel like i typed up a lot and I'm over it. I'm surprised you made it this far. 

is Jane essentially like a smarter Emma! >?

i don't know!

ahh!!!

and so yea, that's it. 

thanks for reading.