A typical style of many best-selling suspense novels, the story is told from the perspectives of three different women, who are all in some way connected to Ruth, the main character. The story starts out slow and does not pick up much, in my opinion. Because the story line is kind of slow, I had difficulty keeping track of the main characters and their stories.

“ The Girl Before You” is yet another “ girl” book but this one is not as much a thriller or mystery as you know what happened very early in the book if you read this genre regularly. I struggled with this because alternating viewpoints is a well used device but in this case there were too many without any introduction or foundation laid to help the reader and I had to keep looking back to pinpoint who was who.
It begins with Alice spotting a woman on the train who reminds her of a girl who went missing back in college. She starts looking into the past and the circumstances that led up to that night.
The characters follow a bit of a stereotype Ruth Walker, the missing girl was beautiful, fell in with wrong guy. Her best friend who falls for Richard, a guy who only has eyes for only for Ruth. George the cad whose wealth and privilege allows him to get away with horrible acts with his hanger on Dan. Alice a successful divorce attorney and champion of women is somehow blind to her own husbands actions and it is hard to feel empathy for her because she ignored signs of who her husband George was.
Quite a bit of the story focuses on Naomi, who is the missing woman’s sister and her sexuality.
Ugh even this review has too many characters and is confusing! It is more a cautionary tale for young women than a mystery.

Thank you #harpercollins and #netgslley for the opportunity to read this advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The girl before you review

Does a good job of building the story, just enough of a peek at the mystery, introducing the red haired girls who’s hair was fanned out as if underwater....creepy!
In the first few chapters, I found the alternating narrators a bit confusing, possibly too choppy or providing too many details or too deep into the background to be able to keep the info straight (and I have plenty of experience with alternating narrators). But the story kept me enraptured, and I got into the rhythm of past and present, wanting me to push forward and unravel the relationship between the named characters. On occasion I got lost in the timeline (location 1378) between past and present, as if the author didn’t give the right guidance or placemarkers to keep it clear. And all the smoking references made me laugh! I’m not sure if the author did it on purpose, or it seems to stick out like sore thumbs since smoking went underground. Add that to the excessive alcohol consumption and it’s amazing any of these characters survived college. I can’t quite work out what all this excess was meant to amount to — blame? Did all these people suffer because of their excess? Their privilege? Overall, I liked the pacing of the story and I felt an urgency to discover what really happened. I felt disappointed when it was all worked out, somewhat anti-climactic, though there was enlightenment and resolution for most of the characters. 3 star.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book very slow going and I got a tad confused with the constant switching between the different characters points of view and the past and present .
Also got bored with all the excessive drinking and casual sex (that may be my age though!) and thought the ending was poor and not conclusive.

The Girl Before You by Nicola Rayner is a psychological thriller revolving around the disappearance of university student Ruth, an outgoing redhead who was reported to be seen swimming on the night of her death. Her shoes, left at the edge of the water and a tattered dress, fished out days later, are all that is ever found. Decades later, her disappearance still haunts those who knew her. The story revolves around Alice who is married to MP and TV personality George Bell. She sees a girl the spitting image of Ruth on the train and starts noticing a series of weird happenings that make her suspicious about her husband George, MP, whose involvement with Ruth slowly unravels. We also follow the story of Ruth’s sister, Naomi and Ruth’s best friend at university, Kat. Past and present mingle as we see the world from multiple points of view and these three women’s stories weave together to give us a bigger picture of the mystery.

I loved the characters in this book – strong women with interesting stories to tell, flawed but believable. The story was compelling – I wanted to know not only what happened to Ruth, but what happened at each step along the way to all the women in the story, to delve into how they got to where they are today, and to wonder at what they will discover in the future.

The suspense built as the characters began to overlap and I gained a deeper understanding of the threads that connected them, inciting me to turn the pages looking for an answer. But there is a lot of backstory in this book and much of it seemed superfluous whilst reading. Around the middle of the book I did find my attention waning, as it seemed a lot of the content was becoming irrelevant and verging on a wee bit boring, so I feel it could have been more concise to keep the reader on the edge of their seat instead of letting us relax into the mundane before reeling us back in.

When the end came, I was definitely surprised – and suddenly a lot of little details made more sense, which shows how subtly the story was weaved. I had a few practical questions left over that sadly, will never be answered and a couple of things didn’t seem to make sense to me, but I’ve overlooked those for how well the characters were written.

The Girl Before You is a unique and intriguing thriller that I’d highly recommend. Four stars.

An interesting, dark and well thought out read that captures your attention from the get go....I finished this book in record time.

An overall compelling story as far as suspense novels go if you are new to the genre. For veteran readers, the narrative holds a hint of familiarity to this category and lacks the intensified plot pace to really push that anticipatory feel. The foreshadowing is overcompensated and the character development is just shy of being fully developed. With the constant shift in points of view in addition to the switch from past and present, it was difficult to feel connected to any one character in particular. It was just an okay read. 3 stars.

Thank you to #NetGalley for this ARC of #TheGirlBeforeYou

I enjoyed this book overall, I found the moving between the two different time points and different characters interesting. I actively disliked certain characters (most of the males ones) although I would imagine that this was intentional and I was pleased with the endings for other characters overall. I think that the author was able to capture well the relationships, including the complexities of these between the different characters, which contributed to my enjoyment of the book.

I was a little weary about a title starting with "the girl...." and involving a disappearance, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I really enjoyed the book, it had just the right pacing and all the characters were pretty well fleshed out. The dual timelines and different points of view allows for you to get the bigger picture quickly.

Not everything was a surprise but it did have enough twists to keep me guessing, which is a step up from many of the "disappeared person" novels out there these days. I must say I wish there had been an epilogue a few months after the ending just to see the effects that the ending brought about. And I must say they had a lot more sex in their college days than I had in mine...

Overall I really enjoyed the story and finished it rather quickly.

"The Girl Before You" follows the same style of many best-selling suspense novels, including those containing the word "girl" in the title. The story is told from the perspectives of three different women, who are all in some way connected to Ruth. When Alice thinks she sees Ruth, who vanished when they were all in college, on the train the events of the story are set in motion. Although the plot description and conflict of the story make it seem like it will be a real page turner, the story starts out slow and does not pick up much. Because the story is slow, I had a difficult time keeping track of the main characters and their stories. The story had a good foundation, it just needed a little more fine-tuning.

The first half had lots of characters which meant I had to concentrate a bit more than usual. This did put me offsloghltg but I did carry on and overall I’m glad I did. I enjoyed it by the end.

This book was both hit and miss for me. I felt distracted at the beginning therefore found the first third of the book to be quite slow. Because I felt distracted I also was confused by characters and their names as the narrative is told from the perspective of a few different women so that added to the slow start for me.

The foundation of the story is good. I like that whilst in a similar vein of many mystery/thrillers popular within the past decade, it does try to forge it's own path and end with a stance of female empowerment after a past filled with shame and belittlement. However the ending is where the book fell flat for me. I felt that I was left with so many loose ends that could have left me with a greater sense of satisfaction for myself, and vindication for a few of the characters. Whether this hints at a tease for a second book I'm not sure, but I hardly believe it to be necessary if this is the objective.

I was drawn to the title and the blurb had me hooked. I wanted to know all about the girl before Alice.
Who was the girl before? What did George Bell the MP had to do with the story? and what happened to the girl before?

The book was written through the perspectives of Alice- George’s wife, Kat- Ruth’s best friend and Naomi- Ruth’s sister. It was easy to follow and hints at an underlying secret- but you don’t know what it could be.

The storyline is generally easy to follow and understand even though it switches between timelines of then and now. I found the book a little slow at first but the story picks up. I found myself intrigued to discover the truth. I didn’t guess the ending and it took me by surprise.

Alice has always been haunted by the women from her husband’s past. As an MP and now a TV personality, George Bell’s reputation as a ladies’ man precedes him. But when Alice falls pregnant, her unease becomes an obsession.



Thank you to net galley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book it was a great experience

Thank you to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Titled to jump on the "The Girl..." train, this book had the requisite twists and turns (many rather improbable), story told from multiple POVs and multiple times, shifting back and forth in time - and way too much uni life, as far as I was concerned. It did hold my attention on a long train ride, but the ending felt forced and a bit of a cheat.

Overall, an average read.

Goodreads review here (direct link not possible): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2747616166

Twisty tale of a young woman named Ruth who disappeared while in college. When Alice, the wife of one of Ruth’s ex boyfriends thinks she sees Ruth on a train years later, she realizes there may be more to story of Ruth. As Alice tries to find out more about the disappearance of Ruth, she finds out more about her husband, and if he played any part in the mystery. Excellent, well paced novel that moves seamlessly between past and present.

If you read a lot of thrillers, this will feel familiar to you. It’s style and themes feel similar to a lot of other books that you may have read in the last year. Having said that, this story still weaves enough of a tale and has enough of an edge to keep you reading. Interesting characters, intriguing themes - definitely worth a thread.

This was an OK read for me. I did find it hard to get into at first but carried on reading. Sadly by the end it still felt it was overall OK.

I was provided an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Told from 3 different point of views, this isn't a new plot or one that you won't recognize.
With that being said, I still enjoyed the way the author weaved the book into a page turner that had me anxious to get to the end. When I finished this book I did feel a bit let down with the way it turned out, and how it felt like forced ending to the storyline.

Very intriguing mystery about a disappearance when the protagonists were in university together. The story is told from multiple points of view AND multiple times, which can get confusing. Overall, I enjoyed the book and thought it was paced well. The mystery was interesting and kept my attention and the characters were all real, multi-faceted personalities.