The Window by Amelia Brunskill - ADVISABLE

The Window by Amelia Brunskill, 336 pages.  Delacorte Press, 2018.  $18.  

Content: Language: PG-13 (37 swears); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS – ADVISABLE  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Anna and Jess are identical twins, but have very different personalities.  Anna is the nice one who is always smiling and helping everyone, and Jess is the more abrasive and questioning of the two.  When Anna is found dead underneath her two-story window, Jess’ parents and the authorities attribute her death to the fact that she was sneaking out to see friends and fell.  Jess, however, thinks she knows Anna better than that and starts to investigate the events leading up to Jess’s death.  Jess quickly learns that Anna had a lot of secrets.  

I read this book in one day because I couldn’t put it down and had to find out what happened.  I liked Jess’s character and I enjoyed the unfolding of the mystery as well as the idea that we don’t always know what everyone around us is going through.  The content includes blackmail over a nude photo, talk of sex, girls drugged without their consent, a boy physically assaulting a girl and an explanation of graphic violent drawings.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson