Overall 3.75*
This book is a bit of a slow burner however stick with it as it has a great twist at the end. Gerry is the main character, who is not necessary likable, and whilst recuperating in his penthouse flat after an accident starts to get calls from the lead character in his last book...but how can this be so as she is just a character. Good, if slow at times, psychological thriller.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

I adore Laura Lippman. Sunburn was one of my best books of the year last year and I read over 100 books! This is most definitely a psychological thriller with a hint of horror. Dream girl packs a punch. Our main protagonist Gerry Anderson is a writer and after an accident he is confined to his apartment in Baltimore. For his recovery he has hired Victoria to oversee his affairs during the day and Aileen who is the night nurse. Gerry starts to have dreams or hallucinations involving one of the characters in his book. Is he being haunted. Or or is it something hallucinogenic or is it the beginning of dementia? Or is it simply somebody messing with him? We spend a lot of book in Jerry’s head and as he is an unlikeable character it is not always pleasant to read. But I have to admit I couldn’t put this book down. It is another great, slow read, Quite the opposite of many psychological thrillers out nowadays and I really enjoyed the slow burn pace of this and of Laura Lippman’s fantastic writing.

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman is a 3.5 star read.
This is a new author for me and when I read the blurb it sounded like something I would love but unfortunately I didn’t. I struggled with this book in that I wanted to stop reading but at the same time I could t put it down hoping it would get better and it didn’t, that’s not to say the book was bad it was just a very slow read and it really frustrated me. I would encourage others to pick up the book and read it for themselves to see as it may be different for them.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book through Netgalley.

Laura Lippman's first foray into the horror genre sees writer Gerry bed bound and receiving phone calls from a woman who doesn't exist. "Dream Girl" unfolds via flashbacks to different points in Gerry's past. Based in Baltimore, Gerry is a bewildered boomer, finding the world somewhat unrecognisable in his advancing years. The book is rich in literary references and explores dementia through Gerry's Mother and his own loosening grip on reality.

Laura Lippman has been on my list for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to reading her yet! Dream Girl was the best possible introduction I could have asked for. What a ride, what a thrill! This book honestly deserves all the hype it has been building up. Thanks to Faber & Faber and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Culture moves fast, especially nowadays. There are a few key milestones that stand out, but with social media events and movements hardly ever get more than their allotted fifteen minutes of fame. There is too much coming at us at once. But this is also taken advantage of when it comes to certain things. #MeToo dominated social media and the cultural and political conversation for quite some time and it still echoes through in our interactions with one another. Women keep coming forward, keep making themselves heard, and the other side, made of up both men and women, keeps hardening in their stance against it. #MeToo, started by Tarana Burke, changed the cultural conversation in that interactions between men and women were looked at in a new light, which showed the daily microaggressions and the casual misogyny that makes up the day-to-day lives of many women. Novels have tackled this in a variety of ways, some more successfully than others. In Dream Girl, Lippman lets her male main character ponder all these changes, the ways in which his behaviour, looking back, perhaps wasn't ideal. But just as he feels unable to truly blame himself, so our cultural conversation keeps moving away from really addressing the key issues. But maybe, with novels such as Lippman's that employ their analytical gaze with the precision of a scalpel, we can get closer and closer.

Gerry has fallen. He lives in a fancy new apartment with a terrifying open staircase and late at night, after a phone call he can't quite be sure he didn't make up, he fell right down it. So now he is bedridden, reliant on his trusty assistant and a night nurse. But as he should be healing, he feels he is slowly losing his mind. Who is calling and pretending to be Aubrey? And why would anyone want to harm him? He's always been good and upstanding... hasn't he? When the actions of the mysterious Aubrey begin to escalate, you simply can't help but wonder what is going on and who is the one lying. One of the most impressive feats of Dream Girl is Lippman's characterization of Gerry. As the novel starts you see him as a kindly, older man for whom the world and culture moves a little too fast. As the story unravels, as we get to see how his mind works, our view begins to change. It's such a slow, careful unravelling of a character that you're almost unaware of how your perception is changing until it already has. It is careful, razor-sharp and so utterly recognizable.

This is actually my first book by Laura Lippman which I myself also couldn't quite believe. I was immediately drawn in by her writing, by the way in which she unnerved the reader and kept everything balancing on a knife's edge. While some of the characters are mild caricatures, this was all done with a wink to the reader. When, as an author, you write a main character that is also an author, you get to play around with your own profession a bit, but also with the genre and reader expectations. Gerry goes through the typical trials and tribulations, the pushy publisher, the request for sad memoirs, the hype of a success that is never quite matched. As the reader, we have to ask ourselves whose story we are really reading. The unreliable narrator is nothing new, but trying to decide who exactly is narrating makes it all a little bit more enjoyable and tricky. I had a great time reading this novel and honestly didn't want to put it down, for either coffee or dinner. There was something compulsive about the need to find out what happens, similarly to how you're on the edge of your seat during a revenge film. You want everyone to get their just deserts, but you're also figuring who actually deserves to be punished. With Dream Girl Lippman has absolutely won me over and I can't wait to dig into her other books.

Dream Girl was impossible to put down, a great character study and commentary on gender, literature and our pre-COVID times!

Thank you to the publisher and author for the ecopy of Dream Girl by Laura Lippman.

Dream Girl was only my second novel by Laura Lippman. I had enjoyed Lady in the Lake very much and really appreciate the noir-esque tone of her writing. Dream Girl maintains that dark tone, but ramps us the gut clenching dread.

Gerry is a famous upper middle aged author, his first book having been his most successful. He is a fairly loathsome human being who is completely oblivious to that fact. He has recently moved from NYC to Baltimore, the city where he grew up, to take care of his dying mother. She died sooner than expected and now he is stuck having to stay in Baltimore a couple years so as to not lose a ton of money on the luxury apartment he had purchased just before his mom's death. In addition to that, he has had the bad luck of falling down the floating stairs in his new home and is bedridden being taken care of by a day nurse and a night nurse. Helpless and under the influence of medications for his injury, he begins receiving phone calls and letters from a woman claiming to be the subject of his most successful novel.

The book was suspenseful and kept my interest. There were funny moments where Gerry's lack of self=awareness about his unlikeable nature were the but of jokes. But the overall tone of the book was suspenseful dread. The ending just didn't work for me, which caused me to knock a star off. I felt like it was a bit out of left field and ambiguous, though it seemed a fitting ending for the style of the book. I just am a reader who prefers more closure than I felt the book provided.

I think readers will likely be divided on this book, though I would certainly recommend it to any noir-lovers or suspense lovers. I am anxious to read another Laura Lippman book I recently picked up called Sunburn to see if I am ready to commit to being a fan of the author. Lady in the Lake was a big win and Dream Girl was a slight miss for me, so what sentiment will win the two out of three battle?

Dream Girl
Moving back to Baltimore to take care of his dying mother was just the first of things to go wrong. Gerry’s life continued to unravel. He began questioning everything from his ex-wives to his father’s moral compass and why he doesn’t write anymore. The things in this story happened fast and we’re almost unbelievable. He wasn’t a very nice person. And apparently he didn’t even realize it.
I laughed at his humor against digital technology and our culture today. Very funny. And the things that happened to him with his sarcasm were very amusing. It was comical and tragic how he ends up.
This book is entertaining, strange and painful with a bit of mystery. I recommend it if you have a healthy sense of humor and like thrillers.
Thanks Faber and Faber Ltd via Netgalley.

Laura Lippman returns to Noir in this claustrophobic novel. Renowned author Gerry Anderson is bedridden while recuperating from an injury. His only company is his assistant Victoria and night nurse Aileen. As he lies in bed he re-evaluates his life, relationships and his place in the literary world. At night he receives strange phone calls from a woman claiming she inspired the titular character in his most popular novel, Dream Girl.

While the book simmers with tension, it is also a wild ride. I have to admit that my interest lagged towards the middle of the book, but I'm so glad I stuck with it. I'm enjoying Lippman's more literary turn. Is Gerry a reliable narrator? He really doesn't understand why so many women are so upset with him. Most of his friends are women, and so what if they're all incredibly attractive. Yes, he's had three wives, but what you don't understand is that his failed relationships just aren't his fault. The mystery caller says she knows his terrible secret, but what could that be? He's never really done anything wrong.

This was definitely out of my usual reading comfort zone. I found it very difficult to become interested and to stick with it.

I tried, but failed to finish. Sometime there are books that grab you and others that simply don’t. I believe that’s why there are so many different genres and writers. To each his own.

Thank you Net Galley.

After reading this book I returned to the book precis and I was amazed at how accurate and down to earth it was.
Yes it has tones of a Stephen King novel but with a touch of dark humour. Naturally Misery springs to mind and although it is not specifically mentioned the sledgehammer does get a quote (I thought this was in the film and a saw in the book?!).
In Part 1 Gerry is restricted to his bed for a couple of months and has the 'help' of a couple of woman - a PA and a Nurse. Odd things begin to happen (letter/phone call etc.) that cannot be explained as they appear to come from the main character in his Dream Girl novel. I was expecting this type of event to continue and grow but THEN, at about 50%, the book is turned upside down.
In Part 2 Gerry continues with his bed restrictions but some of the reasons are gradually revealed although I had to admit I didn't fully understand why. As Part 2 nears it's conclusion you wonder how the book will end and I have to admit I was pretty impressed with the final turn and outcome.
For me, not a fantastic read, but a pretty good book nevertheless.

After a fall down the stairs, Gerry is bedridden. Luckily, he is rich enough for an assistant and a nurse to take care of him. He is a famous author who wrote a bestseller, Dream Girl. He is hopped up on strong painkillers. When the heroine of his book, Aubrey, begins to phone him, Gerry thinks the drugs are making him hallucinate. Though his mother did just die of dementia and hallucinated too. Or could it be someone real from his past trying to Gaslight him?

Dream Girl is being marketed as horror, which it is not. It reads more like a psychological thriller. However, the pacing is s-l-o-w. While I understand that the confusion evident in some of the chapters was meant to replicate the foggy, confused state of Gerry’s mind, it was confusing to decipher. Plus, Gerry is a non-woke misogynist who is just plain unpleasant to spend time with. Think of four hours spent with Harvey Weinstein while he goes on and on about how his victims enjoyed being sexually molested.

For those reasons, Dream Girl receives 3 stars from me.

Thanks to Faber & Faber Ltd. and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Laura Lippman and Faber & Faber for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the premise around this novel, but I really disliked the main character and I found it a bit slow paced for my liking. It just felt like it was dragging in some parts and then really fast in others. I'm torn on whether I really enjoyed it thoroughly or not honestly.

Gerry is in his Baltimore "penthouse" when his mom dies. We believe she had some degree of dementia which Gerry is terrified of inheriting. He begins to receive letters and calls from the "true" Aubrey. The only problem is, Aubrey is a fictional character in one of his books. Gerry starts to to doubt his sanity as the plot progresses.

Nope. This book was not for me. I can see it might have appeal to many people who aren't me. And I even debated giving it 3 stars out of recognition that others might enjoy the book more than me. But in the end I stuck with my own personal rating of "meh." I found the main character, Gerry, a boorish caricature of a self-centered author and the storyline way too rambling. Multiple timelines with flashbacks within those timelines just made it all hard to follow. I felt like the writing was pretentious and egotistical, and while I know it was due to the narrator being Gerry, a guy I already didn't like, I couldn't get past it. Because really that was the entire story. And the actual part of the book that dealt with the supposed story of this fictional character coming to haunt the author was so minor it got lost in all the parts that really annoyed me.

I love Laura Lippman’s writing. She’s smart and funny and her plotting is always excellent. Dream Girl is no exception. This time, Lippman is having quite a lot of fun and there’s a deal of social commentary sitting nicely alongside the story of successful literary fiction author, Gerry Anderson.

Thrice married Gerry has recently moved out of his New York apartment and returned home to Baltimore to look after his ailing mother. But he has no sooner installed himself in an expensive upmarket duplex penthouse there, than his mother dies. Still, at least the move has enabled him to sell up and leave Margot behind.

Margot moves from man to man and it’s not ever easy to get her to let go – he even tried foisting her off on his agent. So selling up and leaving her in New York feels like a final severing of the relationship.

Gerry hasn’t written anything for some time, but he did write Dream Girl, the book that brought him literary and financial success, touching a nerve in the zeitgeist of the time.

His agent wants him to write a memoir, but Gerry doesn’t feel that he wants to do that yet; still though, he doesn’t know what he does want to write. Then one day he slips and falls on his internal staircase and lands badly ending up with a bilateral quad tear.

Stuck in bed, and dosed up on painkillers, Gerry drifts in and out of oblivion, remembering events and people from his life. It doesn’t take long to get the measure of Gerry. He is his greatest fan, for sure. He also doesn’t see women as much other than subjects for objectification, though he’d deny that, of course. But lying in bed, immobile, means that the more the women in his life have Gerry exactly where they want him.

Immobilised, his thoughts go back to his marriages, other relationships, and his childhood where his father was a cheater, eventually leaving the family altogether. Gerry is looked after by Aileen, a nurse who comes in every night and by his assistant Victoria who is there during the day to attend to his every need.

As he dozes one evening his phone rings and a woman claims to be his muse for Aubrey, the protagonist in his novel, Dream Girl. Gerry knows that’s not possible and yet he can’t quite work out what is going on. Is he hallucinating, or is something more devilish at work? More shadowy events and then one night Gerry awakens to find the dead body of a woman on his floor.

Lippman’s use of short chapters, ranging from the present to times in Gerry’s past, make this an easy read. We see the past through Gerry’s eyes and yet cannot ignore his misogyny. Lippman also threads so many wonderful literary references throughout this book, from The Rocky Horror Show to Breaking Bad in a clever and often very witty, laugh out loud fashion. There’s even a cameo from Tess Monaghan, the accidental P.I. and Lippman’s own fictional creation.

She satirises the world of literary affectation gossip and backstabbing, just as she evokes a kind of ‘Misery’ on Gerry. The reader has to guess what on earth is going on as Gerry’s fevered brain tries to work out why there’s a dead woman in his apartment.

Verdict: Dream Girl is a twisty and delightfully sharp thriller which is beautifully plotted and wickedly executed. It’s a layered psychological thriller with a dose of horror and a great helping of satirical humour, all of which combines into a terrific read and comes with a satisfying ending.

Wow. I almost have no words.

I went into this one not really knowing much about it; I just adore Laura Lippman who is an auto buy author for me. It is quite unlike anything else I have ever read. This is written in dual timelines of sorts but there are layers to each timeline that you don’t completely understand until you get to the end. There is something that seemed a teeny tiny bit off for me throughout the book that I can’t quite explain at this moment which is why I give it four and a half stars.

Thank you to Netgalley, William Morrow/Harper Collins and Laura Lippman for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion. I will be forever grateful!

This was an interesting enough novel from Laura Lippman, although definitely not one of my favorites by her. I found Gerry generally unlikable and I felt the female characters weren't very strong or well developed. But I enjoyed the general premise and wanted to know the eventual outcome for Gerry. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

Thank you to the author, Faber and Faber Ltd and NetGally, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge Laura Lippman fan, and this was another great read, albeit a bit of a departure from her usual and maybe not her best. Although I wouldn't classify it as horror, it was definitely creepy and had major "Misery" vibes, but some very original twists as well. It didn't necessarily flow as well as a lot of her other works, more of a slow burn and it took me a while to get into it. Gerry, the main character was not as fully developed as I would have expected, he came across a bit flat and uninteresting - the women in his life were much more interesting. I do love that the author branched out and tried something new - and smiled when who should turn up in a bit part but Tess Monaghan!

Novelist Gerry Andersen, after an accident, is bedridden in his new penthouse apartment in Baltimore. His only constant companions are his assistant Victoria in the daytime and his night nurse Aileen. Gerry receives phone calls from a woman claiming to be Aubrey, a character in his best selling novel. Gerry is confused and bewildered by these claims while also being under the influence of pain medication and Ambien at the same time. His life is confined to his bed with a smart phone and a laptop. We get to know about Gerry's past, his mother, absent father and three ex-wives, not to mention Margot, who is quite the character.
I enjoyed the writing style. It was very suitable for this type of hazy mystery/psychological thriller. Really nothing much happens while Gerry lies in bed, scarcely able to move. It's his inner musings we experience. None of the few characters were likable though. And the ending was indeed a total surprise. I never saw it coming. That is actually the trademark of a good story for me. I like the element of surprise. I want to keep guessing as the story unravels.
In the author's note I learned that one of the inspirations for this book was Stephen King's Misery . I could not feel the horror elements in this story, but it had certain eeriness at certain points.

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman was a bit of a letdown for me. I have noticed her name out there and know she has a lot of published books. I assume she has a large following so, I decided to give her new book a try. I now understand this is a bit of a departure for this author into horror. I've seen it classified as horror, mystery and thriller. I didn't see it as any of those genres.

I loved the premise of the book. Gerry Andersen is a prize winning author who is laid up in his Baltimore apartment for at least 12 weeks. His assistant does daily care and errands and he has a nurse for the night shift. I didn't like Gerry. The whole book was pretty much his rambling thoughts as he was laying in his hospital bed. I found it a boring. There weren't any characters I could identify with or like.

If you like autobiographies or memoirs, you most likely will like this book even though Gerry is not a real person. It came off a such for me. I don't usually stay interested in a memoir so probably why this book didn't hold my interest. This is not a poorly written book. It just wasn't my kind of book. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

I received a copy of this book from #Netgalley for a fair and honest review. Thank you!