Invisible Girl is a dark, psychological, character study. It makes you wonder who the monsters really are. It is well-written with great character development. As the point of view shifts from one character to the next - you constantly wonder - is this person good or evil? Jewel does a good job of keeping us guessing. It is slow paced not what I would call a thriller. It is a character driven drama. Loved the wrapping it up ending but Jewel leaves us with one last question about the actuality of one of the characters. People are just not who they seem. The takeaway is that we shouldn't be too quick to judge and to never take people at face value.

Saffyre Maddox is a popular and straight-A student, secretly dealing with childhood trauma and grieving the death of her grandad. Saffyre’s charismatic therapist Roan Fours has discharged her from his care but she isn’t quite ready to say goodbye. 
Roan and his wife Cate are going through a rough patch after she accused him of having an affair. They are living in a flat with their teenage kids Georgia and Josh while their house is being renovated. When sexual assaults start happening in the area in broad daylight, Cate begins to worry about the secrets her own family members are keeping.
The Fours family live across the road from Owen Pick, a socially awkward teacher who is seen by others as really creepy. He lives with his aunt, has no friends and has never been intimate with a woman before. 
Then Saffyre goes missing.

I have read several Lisa Jewell books and this is one of my favourites! The narrative alternates between the POV of Saffyre, Cate and Owen and I particularly enjoyed Saffyre’s chapters. The pacing is slow but the book is still a page turner. I appreciated the fact that the plot was realistic, some thrillers I’ve read this year have been too outlandish but Invisible Girl has a very real storyline and flawed characters that ultimately just want to be seen.

I thought the character development was well done, particularly in Owen’s case. I had never heard of incel culture before and oh my, it's terrifying! Peak toxic masculinity! I had such mixed feelings about Owen because I felt so much sympathy for him even though I didn’t want to. How often are people judged because they don’t fit in to what society deems as normal? In the end I just wanted him to find the love that everyone deserves.

I can't wait to read more of Lisa Jewell's books in the future!

Happy Publication day to Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell.

Lisa has become one of my go-to authors whenever I want to read a great thriller, The Family Upstairs, Watching You and Then She Was Gone are on my list of favorites.

I absolutely loved Invisible Girl, the story focuses on a traumatic young girl who goes missing and all the people around her who might be involved in her disappearance.

A story told from different POV with well-developed characters, a fast-paced read that will keep you flipping the pages until the end. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for sending me this E-Arc in exchange for my honest review.

Lisa Jewell's newest mystery/thriller is the story of a missing orphaned girl, a middle-aged mother trying to make her marriage work , and a 33-year-old school teacher who has never had a girlfriend despite his longing for connection.

Cate spends her days looking after her home and her now teenaged children and trying to heal her marriage after she nearly derailed it last year. To make matters more complicated, there's a sexual predator on the loose and now she's constantly worried about her daughter's safety on top of everything else.

Owen Pick lives across the street from Cate and her family. When he's suspended from his job after accusations of misconduct, he has a lot of time on his hands. Time to think about why exactly he's ended up being a 33-year-old virgin. And time to notice a young woman who has been lurking outside of his neighbor's house.

When 17-year old Saffyre Maddox goes missing, police are quick to turn on the last person who claims to have seen her. But things are not as they appear.

Like Jewell's previous work (I'm particularly thinking of Watching You), this book explores how facts can be interpreted and misinterpreted to create glaringly different stories as well as how people are never quite who they seem to be. The story is fast-paced and the writing is engaging. I flew through it.

Other than the general coincidences of all of these different characters being connected to one another, I thought the plot was believable. The only thing that really didn't hold up for me (without giving anything too specific away) was the Alicia subplot.

I started to get icky feelings about a quarter of the way through when it veered into the horrifying incel subculture and I thought, "Is she going to try to make me feel sorry for someone who is involved with this?" but thankfully the plot turned in another direction.

I think people who did not like The Family Upstairs (which I loved) will get on better with this one, which is more similar to Jewell's other books. Overall, I thought this was a fun and engaging read, if a little too tidy at the end for my taste.

Saffyre Maddox is a trouble girl due to something that happened in her past. Cate Fours is the wife of the therapist who tried to help Saffyre. Owen Pick lives across the street from the Fours and seems to be a little off. When Saffyre goes missing, all of their lives connect.

I was very excited to read Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell. I enjoyed her other books that I’ve read, and I think she has an interesting writing style. The first few chapters of this book had me hooked, but then I started to struggle with it. Most of the characters are unlikeable in this book. I don’t mind that normally, but when all of the characters are unlikeable it makes it hard for the reader to relate to any of them. The only character I truly liked was Aaron, Saffyre’s uncle. The story had so many different plots and so much going on that at times it was easy to get confused.

The story definitely was a slow burn, but I expect that of Jewell. Sadly, I found this one anticlimactic. The ending didn’t have that big twist that I hope to see from the author. There were a couple of twists, but they weren’t enough to give me the wow factor that I want in a thriller. With that said, it still held my interest, and the author made me want to know what happened and how it would end.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

I am a huge fan of Lisa Jewell's books and love that her books are always so different. I've come to expect that her books are going to be unexpected and I love that!

This one was so creepy that it had me on edge right from the start. I loved the way it was told, alternating from different points of view. I loved this because it allows us to really get into the heads of the different characters and see from each of these different view points what is going on. Each of the characters, the main and secondary, were all perfectly developed. They were complex and completely captivating. They all had their own issues that made them stand out. I had so many different feelings about each character as the book progressed and I love that...I love that a book can make me change how I feel about a character from start to finish.

This book is dark but it was so addicting. You can't help but become totally entrenched in what is going on with these characters. Secrets and past trauma along with preconceived notions come to the forefront as family dynamics are expertly explored in this thriller.

I found myself completely wrapped up in what was going on, trying to work out who was responsible for what was happening. This is such a fascinating character study that looks into so many interesting topics and I found that I just could not stop reading. I also appreciated that the topics that Lisa writes about and includes in this novel, which I might add are quite heavy, are all addressed in just the right tone and I never once felt they are used for shock value. It's unsettling for sure, but it adds that perfect layer to tension to the book.

As I mentioned, this one is dark and creepy, which I absolutely loved. This is what I love in a thriller. The suspense builds all along and that ending...it was pure brilliance. I had many theories going and was so glad that none of them proved right! I have enjoyed all of Lisa Jewell's books but this may be my new favorite. She really is at top form with this one and I cannot recommend this book enough!

3.5 Stars

This psychological suspense novel gives the perspective of three characters (Cate Fours, Owen Pick, and Saffyre Maddox) whose lives become interconnected.

Cate and her family (husband Roan, daughter Georgia, and son Josh) have temporarily moved to an affluent neighbourhood in London. She becomes anxious when a series of sexual assaults occur in the area; she suspects their “creepy” neighbour whom Georgia says followed too closely when she walked home one evening.

Owen Pick is that “creepy” neighbour. He is suspended from his job as a college instructor because of sexual misconduct charges. Full of anger and resentment, he accidentally finds himself involved with an online incel group. When a young girl goes missing, he soon becomes the prime suspect.

Saffyre Maddox is that missing girl. Her chapters are narrated in the first person and focus on the past. Once a patient of Roan Fours, a child psychologist, she becomes fixated on him even after she is discharged from therapy and begins following him. When she learns where Roan lives, she often watches his home. Here she also encounters Owen.

None of the characters is likeable. Cate is just clueless about all members of her own family and refuses to confront people when it is obvious she should be asking them questions. Owen lacks self-awareness and, albeit unintentionally, becomes temporarily fascinated with the incel (involuntary celibate) internet community which is deeply misogynistic and promotes violence against women. Saffyre repeatedly makes poor choices and becomes a stalker. Roan’s behaviour towards Cate is abhorrent. Georgia is totally self-absorbed. Josh only plays the role of perfect child.

Owen is the most interesting character. He’s an awkward, socially-inept loner. He makes poor decisions but it is obvious that all he wants is to be loved. No one has demonstrated any real care or concern for him for years, so he behaves stupidly because he wants a sense of belonging. Because he is odd, people rush to judgment and he becomes the target of suspicion.

Of course Owen is used to illustrate the theme that appearances and impressions can be deceiving. People see him as “weird” and “creepy” and only one person describes him accurately: “gentle, civilized and thoughtful.” That same person expresses the theme: “people can hide a lot of darkness behind carefully constructed masks.” This theme is also illustrated through several other characters as well. Cate, for instance, admits she has a façade that hides “the insecure, pathetic core of her” and Saffyre speaks of having “two different personas.” The theme is repeated at the end of the novel: “If you looked behind the mask. That he might actually be the bad guy, not the good guy.’” Considering this theme, the last line of the novel suggests a frightening possibility.

Characters are developed quite well, though there are a couple of times when they make unrealistic decisions. Saffyre, for example, hurts most the person who loves her the most? Her explanation is weak: “A sense that I needed to let the game play itself out, that there was a different ending, just out of sight, and that it was the right one, somehow.” And how does a person in a caring profession reconcile himself “to causing pain to people he loved on a daily basis?”

There are some surprising twists, though the introduction of a new character towards the last third of a novel makes at least part of the ending predictable. Nonetheless, this is a solid psychological thriller. Not only does it have suspense and keep the reader guessing, it also asks readers to question how well we ever really know someone.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

A slow burn book. The two characters I thought is like the least I ended up liking them most.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

Everyone has a secret here. Roan Fours, the psychologist, his wife, their teenage kids. Then throw in the weird neighbor Owen and 17 year old Safire and you have the cast of characters for an intense, twisty psychological thriller that takes you down plenty of dark ;passages. I watched an interview with Lisa Jewell, so interesting to see her and hear her talk about writing the books!

This book is the perfect mix of wtf just happened and holy crap why.

I loved the depth of characters in this book. You know the perfect amount about each to keep you guessing and interested!

Another great book from this Author!

This is the story of a group of people whose lives intertwine after a teenage girl's disappearance. The police feel sure they know what's going on. But what really happened Valentine's night?

This was a fast-paced psychological thriller. We see the story unfold from three main perspectives, giving us a more rounded picture of many of the events. In these characters we see the good and the flaws. I like the way the first chapter came full circle near the end. I also appreciated the character growth in Saffyre and Cate. This was a book full of complicated people. The twists we're not as surprising as I expected however. The end leaves the reader with a few questions but overall I liked the book.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Lisa Jewell's latest book had me guessing until the end! Last fall I enjoyed reading her creepy The Family Upstairs, so it only seemed fitting that I read Invisible Girl this year. I'd be okay if it became an annual fall tradition!

Invisible Girl is full of deliciously unreliable characters masquerading as people who have their lives together. Jewell doesn't shy away from the seedy, dark underbelly of toxic masculinity, but she also had me questioning everything, unsure if things were as they seemed. They very rarely are.

While this is more of a psychological mystery than a thriller, I still couldn't stop turning pages. I read the second half in a few hours, unable to set it down. It's hard to review without giving any spoilers away, but I LOVED that almost every character was unreliable.

Jewell always manages to create characters and settings that readers can step right into. It doesn't take long to settle into the story. She also teases the reader with just the right amount of information to keep us reading. How does she do that??

There were a few minor things at the very end that felt like they tied up too conveniently, but I was okay with that. Another good one from Lisa Jewell, easily placing her in the must-read-author category for me.

Roan and Cate have recently relocated to a new neighborhood with their two children, Georgia and Josh. Roan is a child psychologist with a history of extramarital affairs who has been acting strangely lately and has suddenly taken up running. When one of his ex-patients goes missing (a 16 year old girl named Saffyre), the man across the street from them gets arrested. Owen Pick is a teacher at a local school who had been put on leave after claims made by past students. When it’s discovered that he was interacting with incel forums online, it seems like an open and shut case. But Owen insists he’s innocent, and Cate just can’t shake that something more is going on with her family…

I LOVED the multiple POVs in this fast-paced thriller novel! The reader gets Cate’s, Saffyre’s and Owen’s perspectives on the events which makes for a very diverse cast of narrators. Lisa Jewell weaves in so many fascinating and controversial topics into her story with a dive into the world of incels and child psychology. The plotline kept me totally hooked with short chapters and lots of little hints. It seemed like EVERYONE was an unreliable character in many parts. The aspect that really stood out to me in Jewell’s writing was the character development. Not only do we see the evolution of main characters but also minor characters - which is rare in thrillers. I read The Family Upstairs and just liked it. This novel fully converted me to a Lisa Jewell fan!

I have read a few romantic suspenses but this was me really dipping my feet into the world of thrillers!⁣

I’ve been looking forward to this book for months!⁣
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This book was a twisted web that kept unraveling. I enjoyed watching the story play out and couldn’t put this book down. I am so glad I saved this for the weekend!⁣
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This wasn’t particularly dark and I was very glad 😅
I was here for the psychological aspect of it!⁣
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Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell is a dark, compelling psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The novel follows the Fours family—Roan, a psychologist, his wife Cate, and their children Georgia and Josh. Georgia becomes very unnerved by their reclusive neighbor who follows her home one day. Their neighbor, Owen, is suspended from his job as a geography teacher due to allegedly sexually harassing two students. Owen who is struggling with the allegations, looks online for advice and gets sucked into the dark world of incel. And although the Fours’ have a bad feeling about Owen, they attempt to keep the peace. That is until one of Roan’s former patients goes missing and the last person to see her alive was Owen.

Lisa Jewell knocked it out of the park—again. This dark mystery had me hooked from the very first page. It was compelling, atmospheric, and downright twisted. I loved how much depth each character had and how so very flawed they were. The story had my eyes glued to the page and had an ending I didn’t see coming. This is the perfect read to kick off the spooky season!

A huge thank you to Atria for sending me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review!

Unlike my recent thrillers, this one was more of a slow burn. Was that a problem? Not in the slightest. Lisa Jewell is a master at weaving characters’ stories together in such a haunting way.

Owen was by far the creepiest part of this story. You want to feel bad for him but it’s also very hard figure out what to make of him. If you’ve never heard of incel, it stands for involuntary celibate and it’s something I probably never needed to know about. It’s disturbing that people like this actually exist.

If you’re looking for a slow burn with mysterious characters and questionable actions, this is the book for you! Be warned though, this book does have a lot of heavy topics.

Thank you so much to Atria Books for my advanced and finished gifted copies! I’d consider Invisible Girl as more of a mystery/drama rather than thriller, but it’s still riveting and fast-paced. Each character had such a unique voice to them and I didn’t know who to trust as the book switched between various POVs. I thought the incel plot point was an interesting and unsettling addition to the layers of the story. The author has a special way of crafting her characters to feel so complex and captivating, and a plot that is clever and shocking. This is the third Lisa Jewell book I’ve had the pleasure of reading and I think it’s my favorite, especially for that final twist! 4.5 stars

I've found that Lisa Jewell books are hit or miss for me. I DNF The Family Upstairs out of boredom. While Invisible Girl wasn't exactly a hit, it wasn't a complete miss either. I DID finish it, so there's that.

There are three point of views: Cate, Owen and Saffyre. We, the reader, have to figure out where the story is going and how the three of them are going to come together. (because you know they will.) It just took too long for me to get to that point. I wanted to care more about these characters than I did, and with the tough subject matter of the book, I should.

The town is dealing with multiple sexual assaults on women/girls and when seventeen year old Saffyre Maddox goes missing, the creepy neighbor (who is described as an incel...new word for me) becomes the suspect in the case.

It all comes to a somewhat satisfying conclusion. I did find that the very last chapter was the most chilling/creepy of the whole book. It took what I thought was a possibility and made it real.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review.

The plot of this book was filled with bone chilling mystery, seemingly creepy characters and the ever present who done it question. Not only do we have that to wonder but also to wonder what happened to teenager Saffyre Maddox.

Could it be the 33 year old virgin and suspended teacher Owen Pick who lives with his aunt and was the last to see Saffyre alive, could it be phycologist Roan Fours whom Saffyre has recently been discharged from his care but has been following him and keeping tabs on him, what about his wife Cate who had suspected that he was having an affair with the teen.

The police have set their sights on Owen but the neighborhood holds many more secrets and sinister activities that all link back to Saffyre. Now the police must have their wits about them as they search for the right criminal but also try to find Saffyre Maddox and uncover what really happened to her.

Another fantastic read from Ms. Jewell. Will definitely keep you guessing!!

Invisible Girl follows three different people whose lives intertwine around a single event. On Valentine’s Day, sixteen-year-old Saffyre Maddox disappears on a quiet street in London. The last person to see her was Owen Pick. Owen is a bit of an odd man. He’s a high school teacher who has recently been suspended from his job accused of sexual harassment by two female students. Thoroughly frustrated by the unfounded claims, Owen becomes involved in the “incel” community, involuntary celibates. After Saffyre goes missing, all signs point to Owen, especially from his neighbors, The Fours family, who claim he’s followed their daughter. But what really happened to Saffyre that night?

In true Lisa Jewell fashion, it had moments of being incredibly creepy. The story alternates between three different perspectives: Owen Pick, Saffyre Maddox, and Cate Fours. I found that I felt back for Owen, it definitely seemed like he just got caught in an extremely bad chain of luck. At least that’s what it seemed like at the beginning.

This was an incredibly fast-paced and gripping story. I flew through it in two days, clinging to the page for more. I have to admit that the story did not play out the way I anticipated and I found the ending somewhat disappointing, but overall I really enjoyed it!