Laura Lippman's Dream Girl: A Captivating Novel of Love, Mystery, and Self-Discovery

Josh Mauthe: One of my favorite small pleasures about reading primarily ebooks is that, without a book jacket or back cover to look at, I often forget what a book is about - or don't even know - when I go to pick it up, which allows for an experience that's a lot more fresh and unshaped by expectations. Such was the case with Laura Lippman's Dream Girl, the story of a writer who ends up confined to a bed in his house and starts finding himself besieged by a character from one of his own novels. Lippman is playing a lot of games here, with a little Diabolique, a little Rear Window, a little Misery, and a lot of metafiction about authors and theit influences, but the result never feels derivative and never feels predictable - and that's especially true in the final act, when things start taking some very unexpected turns that start turning the book's subtext into rich text. Lippman says in the afterword that Dream Girl is her first horror novel, and I can see where she's coming from; there is some excellent psychological tension in how she keeps making Gerry feel like he can't trust his own senses and memories, and some of the images here are wholly wild ones. More than any of that, though, it's...

United States on Nov 22, 2023

massimo lanzini: Non capisco come sia diventato un best seller. Ho trovato la scrittura sciatta e la storia noiosa.

Italy on Sep 05, 2023

Amazon Customer LKN: Why oh why all the sex in today's novels? Could have done without the bedroom, park, and restaurant sex scenes. The mystery was enough of a good story line!

United States on Jul 05, 2023

April Cenciose: Didn't hate it. Didn't love it it was ok. Just a time filler really. I have to wonder why so many books waste so much time and space Getting to the point. So many pages filled with just that that. Filler. Sad really.

Canada on Mar 18, 2023

Lulu51: I enjoyed the characters and the plot line. Was disappointed by the ending though. IT seemed too quick.

Canada on Mar 13, 2022

TapTheLine: Some may say that a story featuring a disabled author getting exploited by the people closest to him is not the definition of original as it bears significant resemblance to Stephen King's classic Misery. Nevertheless, Laura Lippman's pen is so adept at reflecting the inner cosmos of the protagonist that deems her latest novel a fascinating cocktail of psychological thriller mixed with splashes of suspense and character self-exploration. The American author's writing is filled with references to works of fiction, either books or movies and television series, and the final outcome is a rich text that entertains while at the same time introduces the reader into the literary world through the main character's -biased- point of view. Dream Girl is not so much a plot-driven novel, but rather relies on Lippman's skill to create a mesmerizing atmosphere through the use of a singular type of prose which illustrates in vivid colours the peculiarities and capriciousness of the story's actors.

Gerry Andersen is the protagonist and the character through whom we watch the story unravel. Lippman employs a multiple timeline narrative style and in the present we are witnessing Gerry's...

United States on Nov 17, 2021

Alvin Newman: A fine Lippman mystery but a bit reminiscent of King’s “Misery”. As an ex-Baltimrean I was nistalgic for her hometown.

Canada on Jul 28, 2021

Laurel-Rain Snow: In the end, has anyone really led a blameless life?

Injured in a freak fall, novelist Gerry Andersen is confined to a hospital bed in his glamorous high-rise apartment, dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse.

Then late one night, the phone rings. The caller claims to be the “real” Aubrey, the alluring title character from his most successful novel, Dream Girl. But there is no real Aubrey. She’s a figment born of a writer’s imagination, despite what many believe or claim to know. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life?

And why does no one believe that the call even happened?

Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and a dreamlike state in which he is haunted by his own past: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved.

And now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that she is owed something. Is the threat real or is it a...

United States on Jul 03, 2021

Graham G Grant: This is a novel about a novelist, and to some extent about writing itself. The protagonist is Gerry Andersen, perhaps an amalgam of some famous male writers such as Mailer or Roth. If he’s not a womaniser, he’s fairly close to it. He’s rich
and successful, and living in an expensive if soulless penthouse in his native Baltimore. After an accident, he’s laid up in a hospital bed in the apartment. He has an assistant and a nurse on whom he becomes entirely dependent. The story of his long recovery is interwoven with flashbacks to a troubled childhood: Gerry’s dad left, and Gerry and his mother, who suffered from dementia and has recently died, had to fend for themselves. There are also flashbacks to Gerry’s many failed relationships and sexual encounters. At least one of these is rendered in slightly too much detail for some tastes… The pivotal event is the discovery of a dead body in Gerry’s apartment. The death is unexplained. Gerry, heavily drugged, realises he must have been responsible, but he has no recollection of the woman’s death (she’s an old flame and accomplished gold-digger). It’s fast and slick, but Gerry’s not the most appealing character…...

United Kingdom on Jun 30, 2021