Jane Anonymous [review]

Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz
To be published by Wednesday Books on January 7, 2020
my rating: ★★
Goodreads avg: 4.17 (as of 2019-12-28)
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own.

Spoiler-free Review

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Then, “Jane” was just your typical 17-year-old in a typical New England suburb getting ready to start her senior year. She had a part-time job she enjoyed, an awesome best friend, overbearing but loving parents, and a crush on a boy who was taking her to see her favorite band. She never would’ve imagined that in her town where nothing ever happens, a series of small coincidences would lead to a devastating turn of events that would forever change her life.

Now, it’s been three months since “Jane” escaped captivity and returned home. Three months of being that girl who was kidnapped, the girl who was held by a “monster.” Three months of writing down everything she remembered from those seven months locked up in that stark white room. But, what if everything you thought you knew―everything you thought you experienced―turned out to be a lie?

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I was going into this expecting an interesting exploration of trauma and that was… not what I got. Clearly I’m in the minority, looking at the average GR rating, but I felt like this was a major disappointment. This follows Jane, a teenage girl using a pseudonym as she writes about her experiences as a captive but also as she tries to adjust to life back home. The story flips back and forth between past and present as Jane recollects what happened to her.

There were so many frustrating pieces of this that I felt went beyond my suspension of disbelief. Jane’s friends and family are honestly downright awful to her after she returns. I’m sure this is realistic to an extent, but what could have been an examination of how trauma impacts everyone differently just turned into her mom telling her she needs to get over it and be happy she’s home now. I just wasn’t able to believe that her parents, who also went through extreme trauma after their daughter was kidnapped, refused to have any sort of sympathy for her. One of her friends did do really well with understanding her trauma, but I wish that had been looked at on a deeper level. There were also some pretty nasty depictions of wounds and unwashed bodies that felt, frankly, rather unnecessary and more for shock value than anything else. Some of them, especially towards the end, actually had me rolling my eyes and wondering why this had to be so over-the-top. 

There were other bits that had me wondering whether I was living in a separate reality, and that I hope were caught by an editor before the finished version. One was when Jane picks up a 25 lb object and remarks on how grateful she is for her strength training. Like, okay, don’t strain yourself. The second was when Jane noted that after maybe two months in captivity, her leg hairs were two inches long. I’m sure this is possible, but is it likely?? Probably not. (For comparison, I haven’t shaved my legs in 7 years and mine is around an inch long. An article I found in a five-second google search tells me hair grows an average of 1 cm every 28 days and body hair typically stops growing after 30-45 days.)

Anyway, the last two may have been nitpicky but they also pulled me out of the story and had me rolling my eyes and laughing — something you don’t really want in a tense thriller. I think at least the twist would have been exciting had I not seen someone spoil it in a review that was not marked for spoilers, ugh. If the above aren’t things you think would bother you, I think this would be worth reading. I think it was the combination of unbelievable factors and the lack of more nuanced exploration of trauma that really made it not work for me.

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