This book was different, not the usual linear formula. The main character grew more unsavory as you read his flashbacks. it pulled you in and made you wonder how it was all going to play out. I enjoyed the nods to Misery and the whole thing had a creepy surreal vibe going on, and at the same time I felt like I had read it before. The ending had an oddly icky twist, but was satisfying.

I've been mentally writing this review before I even finished the book.

Gerry Anderson is a celebrated writer. Thrice married and thrice divorced, he's made his career with a hit novel "Dream Girl" - a book - based in no one. He's been a visiting professor, a celebrated writer and now, now he's a man who can't walk because of an injury in his Baltimore apartment. He slips in and out of awareness - reliving his past and dealing with his present situation with an assistant and a nighttime nurse.

Then he wakes up one morning....and there's a body.

I really enjoyed Laura Lippman's previous work and was excited to read this one as well. Lippman wrote a confusing and thriller novel with very "inside baseball" literature references (Sheila Heti!!) and I love every single word.

I think that some readers may find this a little hard to get into - I know that I did - but the story that blossoms out of these pages is wild and it's 100% worth the ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

When writer Gerry Andersen has an accident at home and needs a nurse to care for him strange things start to happen; is it the medication that he's taking or is someone out for revenge?

The story gripped me from the beginning; Gerry wasn't a likeable character the flashbacks between the past and present made him more 'real' and when the novel took a misery-esque turn I couldn't put it down until I found out how things were going to end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

I am so excited when I see that one of my favorite authors has a new book coming out, and I was thrilled when I saw Dream Girl by Laura Lippman on NetGalley. I've read every one of Lippman's novels, starting back with her Tess Monaghan series, which I loved. (Tess even makes a cameo appearance in Dream Girl!!) However, I have to be honest, although Dream Girl is beautifully written, it was not my favorite Lippman novel.

The protagonist of the novel is Gerry Anderson, a best-selling writer living high on the residuals of his biggest hit, Dream Girl. He's been married several times and has just relocated to Baltimore from NYC to help his mother who is suffering from dementia. His mother dies abruptly after Gerry gets to Baltimore, but before he can get back to New York, Gerry suffers a bad fall from the "floating staircase" in his high-rise apartment. He ends up with a quadricep tear and will be bedridden for months while he recovers. Gerry's assistant Victoria and a hired night nurse named Aileen become his full-time caretakers. For the most part, Gerry is in a fog of pain and sleep meds, and he starts having some strange experiences like phone calls in the middle of the night from someone claiming to be Aubrey, who is the fictional character in his novel Dream Girl. On top of that, he's being harassed by a former girlfriend who is struggling financially since he left NY.

Dream Girl is a combo of the old noir movie Gaslight and Steven King's novel Misery. I think there were two things that detracted from the story for me. One was that there are abrupt timeline changes that give the reader a view into Gerry's past as a husband, writer, and teacher. I read this as an uncorrected ARC, so perhaps the final draft will be more fluid, but I found the time jumps to be disorienting. Secondly, unlike Ingrid Bergman from Gaslight and Paul Sheldon from Misery, Gerry is a very unlikeable character. Through the flashbacks, we learn that Gerry completely lacks self-awareness and is a hopeless misogynist. Really, the only successful relationship in his entire life is his literary agent. As a result, I didn't really care what bad things might befall him.

On the plus side, Lippman is a fantastic writer. The characters are well-developed, the pace is quick, and the storytelling is top notch. It's a good read, just not as great as Lippman's other novels. I particularly liked the ending, which was a delightful surprise. Overall, I'd say this was a 3.5, which I'll round up to 4 because of my love of Laura Lippman.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Dream Girl is scheduled for publication on July 1, 2021.

The concept behind this book was really intriguing - you're bed bound, foggy with drugs, and mysterious things start to happen.

I read the entire book but it was a struggle. I wound up speed reading the first 30% and it didn't start to get interesting until about 50%. The first half of the book was very rambling, almost stream of consciousness and I couldn't see where it was going or how it was categorized as a mystery/thriller. I think the cover was a bit misleading, but I guess an old, white guy in a home hospital bed wouldn't sell many copies :-) The characters were all unlikeable, which I'm sure was the author's intent, but there was nothing redeeming except that you "sort of" felt sorry for Gerry when he realizes he's at the mercy of his night nurse. And as the author points out at the end, the story was definitely inspired by Stephen King's Misery in that cringing, can't look, but can't not look sort of way. There were several directions she could have taken it and the ending is a nice surprise, it just took way too long to get there.

Thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for an advance reader's copy for review.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy to read and review. I thought it was rather slow-paced. Something happens finally around 50% in and it’s rather obvious the culprit but you don’t really find out until about 90% in. The flashbacks were interesting and, with the slight shock at the end, make you curious if they were real. I wish I hadn’t been able to predict as much as I did.

Thanks to #Netgalley I got to read this latest Laura Lippman book before it gets released on June 22. An interesting story of Gerry Anderson, a writer who had a freak accident and was confined to bed. But things get a little eerie here when he starts getting phone calls and weird things start happening. It was a great story but slow for me and although I did finish it, I found myself in a love-hate relationship with the main character.

I found the references to many literary works a bit mundane, but in whole the story was compelling and the woman he dealt with were a piece of work.

#threestars #netgalley #dreamgirl

I really could not get into this book , I got 20% in but. I didn’t like the characters or the story so I gave up

My thanks to Laura Lippman, Faber and Faber and Net Galley for the ARC of DREAM GIRL.
I really tried to like this novel. I haven't read Laura Lippman before but I think I was expecting something different. The cover I think led me to another place and although I enjoyed the first 30%; I quite enjoy introspective types of novels, I began to lose interest because of the rather ridiculous decision he made to allow his nurse to make a life-changing decision for him. I couldn't quite get a handle on it. He wasn't terribly likeable and had issues with his parents, with most people it turned out including his wives. I've given it three stars because it's well-written but not entirely for me.

This book was a page turner from beginning to end. Very captivating with amazing character development. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Really enjoyed spending time with this book and its protagonist. It's not easy being and old white man, specially not in these modern times, even more so if you're maybe haunted by the protagonist of your most successful novel. Alternative Title: Gerry's Women.

Overall, I found this to be an unsatisfying psychological thriller. There were chapters that flew by and others that dragged and/or were confusing. I was expecting a lot more from the conclusion after all of the build up. It was disappointing, unclear and almost humorous. Thank you to Goodreads and NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

While very intriguing, this book just did not hit me at all. I really wanted to like this book. However, the pacing was slow and the characters did not connect with me at all. What I did like was the make perspective, which made the story a little more unique. But overall I had a really hard time getting through this book.

Let me be perfectly clear. I did not like the main character, Gerry Anderson. And that is the point, Lippman made him unlikeable for a reason. Jason Culp’s narrators voice does not make him any more likeable. He makes the supporting characters just as unlikeable. Laura Lippman’s wonderful private investigator shows up in the book and turns down his request for help. I do not blame her. And yet, the reader will get caught up in this story and even the last chapter will come as a surprise. Gerry Anderson, is a famous author, stuck in his penthouse apartment because a freak accident has made him immobile and he is dependent on help from his personal assistant, a physical therapist, and a night nurse. And to make it worse, he gets phantom phone calls from Dream Girl, the girl in his most famous novel. Its driving him crazy because he cannot make people believe him. It gets worse when his praying mantis, a former fiancé, shows up demanding he let her live with her. He gets her to leave only to wake up the next morning to find her dead beside his hospital bed. And then the book really starts getting creepy. He lets his night nurse dispose of the body and from then on his life spirals quickly into a nightmare. I’m not going to give the story away but let me say, I am glad Gerry Anderson won’t be appearing in any more books by Lippman.

Gerry Andersen, well-respected author, three times married, Baltimore resident is a prisoner in his own high rise flat. After a domestic accident which puts him in a hospital bed, cared for by two nurses (one day, one night) in his home, he has plenty of time to ruminate on his past: a troubled childhood, three ex-wives, a number of one-night stands, old friends and literary success. The novel’s title, ‘Dream Girl’ alludes to his one bestseller. Soon it appears that the fictional dream girl, Aubrey, is phoning him in the middle of the night threatening to disclose ‘‘…what really happened between us, that mess with your wife. I think it’s time the world knows I’m a real person.’’
Yet, as the narrative develops, prank phone calls are the least of Gerry’s worries. Lippman’s decision to place her central character in a peculiarly vulnerable position, albeit surrounded by comfort in his own luxurious flat, is very effective. This heavily medicated alpha male, so used to taking exactly what he wants, grows more and more anxious, not least when he believes that he has become embroiled in two murders.
Despite his strange situation, Gerry is a credible character. Nevertheless, the reader is unlikely to feel sympathy for him, such is his self-centred narcissistic personality. His reflections on his past behaviour are rarely honest. More difficult to believe in are his carers, Aileen and Victoria. Are they really motivated to do what they do because they have been belittled by Gerry in the past? And why are all the crimes so superficially investigated as the story draws to a close other than that any dwelling on them will detract from the ‘big reveal’?
Laura Lippman is a talented writer and she explores some important ideas in ‘Dream Girl’: this is a novel written for #metoo times. It is also a study of ambition, vanity and the place of fiction in our lives. Her deft plotting, moving from the past to the present throughout the novel, allows us to appreciate how Gerry has become the man he is. However, this all makes for a very long build-up to the, sadly, underwhelming and rather predictable final pages.
My thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Dream Girl was a bizarre read in the most delightful way. After novelist Gerry Andersen has an accident and is bedridden weird things start to happen. There’s definitely a Misery feel to this book. It’s told in glimpses of Gerry’s past and present so you really get his back story. I will say that the ending was crazy! I loved the authors note at the end as well

Gerry Anderson is an author who had a bad little incident. While recovering, he keeps encountering his "Dream Girl", the girl that he wrote about in his famous novel. Is Gerry going mad or does this Dream Girl actually exist?

Dream Girl definitely had some of my signature trademarks: it had imperfect characters who were trying their best, the storytelling was rather advanced (clearly a very talented author), and it even had a bit of steam. The book has very good character development where the MC, Gerry, is portrayed as a horrible human being, but (of course) he doesn't view himself that way. Gerry does offer the book a bit of high-brow humor, and I thought that the book was very funny and entertaining. Also, I did enjoy the mystery of finding out what was going on. None of the characters were doing silly things and ignoring perfectly obvious clues. We also see little flashbacks of Gerry's life which were also very entertaining.

Overall, this is one of the more well-written thrillers that I have picked up recently. I look forward to reading future works by Lippman.

This story follows novelist Gerry Andersen after an accident leaves him bedridden for a few months. He's completely dependent on his assistant, his night nurse, and the medications he takes. His mother died recently and he moved from NYC back to his hometown of Baltimore. He has all the time in the world to think and reflect on his 70+ years of life. However, being at home isn't as peaceful as it seems. His ex-girlfriend persistently shows up to try and get money or a place to stay out of Gerry and he starts receiving troubling phone calls claiming to be the main character from his popular novel - Dream Girl. Between flashbacks to his past, these confusing phone calls, and learning more about his assistant and nurse, we get a good picture of who Gerry is but the truth isn't always so clear. TW/CW: sexual assault

This was a big miss for me - there are tons of 5-star reviews on Goodreads where people found Gerry and his story compelling and thrilling and they were unable to put this book down. I found it to be completely the opposite. This read to me like a literary fiction book that decided at the end to go back through and put in some thriller elements. Lit Fic is not my genre and while I have found some thriller/mysteries that have a lit-fic writing style that I really enjoyed, this is not one of them. I was hoping this would be Misery mixed with Rear Window but that isn't what I got. I think the book was fine, but it mostly just wasn't for me. If mostly lit-fic with a side of thriller is your jam, then I think this is a good book to try out.

I think the part of the story this book did the best with is Gerry's characterization. Which, when the whole story is one guy stuck in a bed, characterization is pretty key. We get a lot of his life through flashbacks that jump through time. We get him as a boy, in college, through his 3 marriages, and when he's a professor. This is a very well developed and deep look at Gerry and from that perspective, it was incredibly well done. At time, especially in the first half, this felt more like a character study than anything else. I was trying to pay attention because I was hoping these random stories about these various things that happened through his life would come back and be important to the mystery aspect (and they were). Gerry is also a somewhat unlikable character which I actually really appreciated. I personally like when protagonists are unlikable because I find them more compelling and realistic. In this case, Gerry was unlikable in the exact way as to grate on my nerves so much when I was reading. He came off as arrogant, entitled, dismissive, and just generally sort of a jerk. Readers who want the main characters to be likeable need not read this book. The other side characters felt really underdeveloped and almost caricatures at times which fits with how I think Gerry would view them. I would get so incredibly frustrated with Gerry that I had to remind myself he was just a fictional character - which is probably the highest praise I could give to this type of book.

I think if this was marketed as a sort of lit-fic story about a man looking back over his life and maybe having to rectify a few situations, then I would say this was a success. However, this was partly marketed as a mystery/thriller and on that side, I'd say the book was a pretty big miss for me. The thriller elements, in theory, would be really interesting and engaging. A bed-bound man getting mysterious and somewhat threatening phone calls from a mystery woman. What will happen when she arrives? Is Gerry in danger? What does this woman want from him? The tension is practically built into the very concept of getting mysterious phone calls. But for me, the pacing and choices made with the thriller beats made it pretty dead in the water. It felt like the first half of the story was just the flashbacks to Gerry's life and then the thriller/mystery of these phone calls really came in way too late in the story for me and then was resolved really quickly. I wanted the thrills to escalate, the danger to grow, maybe some mysterious physical threats as well. It felt like we got like 3 phone calls that were all really similar, something big happened, and then we found out the truth all in a pretty small section of the book. I'll be honest, I almost put the book down at 80% when we found out the truth of what is going on because it had absolutely no pay off for me. Like, a character just explains what has been happening. In my mystery/thrillers, I want the protagonist to figure stuff out, to put the pieces together, to 'win' at least at some points. I didn't get any of those points from the thriller/mystery elements of this story and it really just took the wind out of my sails entirely.

I thought the flashbacks were interesting and did a good job building momentum as the book progressed. I acknowledge the difficulty building pacing, momentum, and tension when the protagonist is just laying in a bed recuperating. I liked that we were hopping around and following multiple points in Gerry's life which helped me feel more engaged in the story. If this was just a linear history of Gerry's life, I probably would have put the book down. I did find myself more interested in certain other plot lines more so the main timeline of Gerry and the phone calls so that was interesting. I also liked that a good amount (but not all) of these past plot lines intersect with the current plot line/mystery line so there was some payoff there. That being said, I feel like if the pacing was a little tighter and if some of the less important past timeline scenes got cut, the payoff of how these lines came together in the end would have been much greater.

Overall, my thoughts on this book fell into the category of 'not for me'. I can see how some other readers could find this story super compelling and interesting but it just wasn't clicking for me.


Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review

Expected publication is July 1, 2021.

Gerry Andersen is a successful novelist and all around good guy. He came from a philandering father and vowed never to be like him. This is why he always treats his woman with the upmost respect. Just ask his first wife, or his second wife, or his third wife. They would all tell you what a swell guy he is.

A shame he fell down the stairs of his new condo leaving him helpless and bedridden. His assistant Victoria spends her days with him and he hires a night nurse, Aileen, to assist him through the evening. He begins receiving mysterious phone calls in the night from, Aubrey. That can't be right?!?! Aubrey is a fictional character in his book. Is he losing his mind to Alzheimer's like his mother succumbed to or is he hallucinating on all the pain and sleep meds he's taking? You'll have to read this to find out.

Is Jerry absolutely despicable? Yes! Are his musings hilarious? Yes! What a hoot this guy is. I love to hate characters and Lippman did a fine job in his characterization. I also found the book to be quite clever, especially in the reveal, and the ending satisfied me. So I am late to the Lippman party, this book being my first, but I am very much looking forward to her backlist of which there are many to choose from. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd form my copy.

Writer Gerry Andersen is languishing in a hospital bed in his apartment after an unfortunate fall down the stairs. In his isolation, he has only his assistant and a night nurse to depend on.
He has an ex-girlfriend showing up at his bedside threatening to blackmail him for money to continue her comfy lifestyle. In the sleeping pill induced haze of the night a woman begins to call him, claiming to be Aubrey, the titular character from his most well-known novel.
The problem is, these phone calls never appear on his caller ID and Aubrey is entirely fictional. While he assumes the calls are most likely a prank, he begins to consider the possibility that it could be someone he has wronged in the past.
Then he wakes one morning to find a dead body near his bed and from there, Gerry’s life spirals as he tries to piece together what happened.
With the help of flashbacks, readers are given an accurate picture of Gerry’s past, which is much different from his recollection. With nods to Misery and a healthy dose of the #MeToo movement, Dream Girl is a slow burn that amplifies the suspense as the possibilities keep you guessing until the end.

While I enjoyed the slow burn, there were things that detracted from the story for me. Most of the flashbacks took away from the main focus of figuring out who the mysterious caller was. They had nothing to do with his present situation and while I enjoy getting a character’s back story, I feel like we already know from page one that Gerry sucks. He isn’t likable at all, which is great for this story and works well, but too much time was spent driving that point home. While the ending was clever, there were a few loose ends that bothered me. I’m surprised to see this listed as a horror novel because it fits firmly in the psychological thriller genre in my opinion.

Thanks to Faber & Faber Ltd and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Dream Girl is scheduled for release on July 1, 2021.