Having read several books by Laura Lippman in the past, and having, for the most part, rated them highly, I jumped at the chance to review her latest novel. My mistake. I gave up after 100 pages. While the description on NetGalley grabbed my interest, nothing happened. I could take no more of Gerry Andersen - self-centered author who managed to severely injure himself. And I do not appreciate authors who slip their own views into the story. I can read enough about partisan politics and a broken world in the news. I read fiction to avoid it.

A slow moving thriller that had me hooked!

After an unfortunate accident, Gerry, a famous author, is confined to a hospital bed in his 25th floor apartment. Gerry is only surrounded by his assistant and a hired night nurse. As Gerry drifts in and out of consciousness, he receives mysterious phone calls, letters, and visits from his main character Audrey, in his book 'Dream Girl". According to Gerry, every time someone asks, Audrey is not based on an actual person, but someone he made up. Gerry thinks back on defining moments of his life throughout the story. You learn that he has 3 ex-wives, an ex-girlfriend and multiple affairs. Is Gerry delusional or is he scorned by an ex lover?

This story reminded me so much of Misery by Stephen King. I absolutely loved Misery (both the book and movie) and I enjoyed Dream Girl as well. I read this book in two days! The slow build-up of Gerry feeling like he is losing his mind, believing the things his night nurse was saying, and finding out the truth to everything, was perfectly written. I was entranced by the progression throughout the story and wanted to know what had actually happened! In the present sections of the story, I empathized with Gerry and wanted to know exactly what was going on.

TW - sexual assault

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

had seen Laura Lipmpman's Dream Girl in the July issue of Real Simple as one of the hot summer reads of the season.
However when I actually started reading it, it read like it was trying to be some sort of #Metoo version of Stephen King's Misery. While I appreciated the feminist approach, in many ways it just felt like a lot of tired cliches about celebrity writers with a whodunit that was entertaining enough to keep reading but it was not an original story.

Seeing this made me wonder if I wasn't an avid reader if I would find it to be a more interesting read. I personally can think of multiple authors and multiple books that tackle similar concepts with superior writing in multiple genres. But if I didn't feel the urge to read as much as I do and was looking through some of the latest selections at Target or the airport to read during an airplane ride or by the poolside I might find it to be more compelling. And if I am honest with myself, i would have to say that if I found it as a Kindle Unlimited book on a rainy afternoon it would be an entertaining book to pass the time. However since Netgalley gave me a copy in exchange for an honest review I'd have to say it is a mediocre story.

Although she is a prolific author of 24 previous novels, Dream Girl happens to be the first of Laura Lippman’s novels that I have discovered. Set in Baltimore, the novel’s plot line is centred around protagonist Gerry Andersen, a 61 year old water recovering from a serious injury that has left him bed-bound, his personal assistant Victoria and night nurse Aileen. Gerry clearly has some ‘unfinished business’ in New York to work through. He is also just beginning to resign himself to the fact that he may never be able to reprise the success of his novel ‘Dream Girl’, and is worried about succumbing to dementia, as his mother did, when the anonymous phone calls and letters start: somewhere out there is a person claiming to be the real-life inspiration for Andersen’s literary ‘Dream Girl’ and not willing to let Andersen out of their clutches. A murder in Andersen’s vicinity marks only the start of a threatening series of events….

I enjoyed this unusual, densely developed novel, despite its initial slow start and the many oblique references to US-American popular culture (which may well be as unfamiliar to other readers as they were to me). The vulnerable male protagonist in fragile physical and mental health is convincingly portrayed, and the developments remain chillingly addictive until you turn the final page. Having read ‘Dream Girl’, I may very well seek out Lippman’s earlier works now to see what thrillers I have missed.

I would like to thank the publishers and NetGalley for the free ARC I received in exchange for this honest and unbiased review.

Published: June 22, 2021
William Morrow
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Laura Lippman is the New York Times bestselling author of acclaimed stand-alones and the award-winning Tess Monaghan series.

“You can love something that makes you sad.”

Gerry is a successful author, recovering from an accident that has left him bed-blind and dependent. With nothing else to do but ponder the past while attempting to contemplate the future, Gerry muses past and present as a future he could never anticipate looms dangerously close.

This is the first novel from Laura Lippman I’ve read, and it is her first horror book. You can see the heavily influenced novels within the context- like Misery- but this story is oddly unique.

How this story unfolds is interesting. I did find the first half of the novel reasonably tedious, though as it starts to build moments, you get sucked into the plot and cannot put the book down.

I found the character of Gerry interesting, as he is a writer. So getting that insight into a writer's mind was very incredible. There is a lot about him to dislike, but I also did like Gerry. I think he had good intentions. However, you know what they say about good intentions.

The characters in this novel are vastly different, but each is so well plotted and uniquely described. The development throughout is pretty intense.

The twist in this book smacked me in the face so hard I saw stars. I was not expecting the twist or the ending. Well done.

𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥, 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦?

𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘺, 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨!
What a fun and clever story. It’s a slow burn, but I loved Gerry’s complex character and his sense of humor, at first I didn’t like him much, but by the end I loved him and wanted him out of that mess.
This book is my first from this author and it won’t be my last.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 NetGalley 𝘢𝘯𝘥 William Morrow 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊.

https://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeemx/

3.5 stars
Gerry Andersen is a bit of a cad. He's a successful author with his first novel blowing up the best seller list. However, that was a few years ago, three wives ago, and numerous affairs in the past. Gerry had an accident and falls an injures his leg requiring a short stay and a patch up in the hospital and then back to his penthouse apartment in Baltimore attended by a nurse and his literary assistant.

Gerry is confined to bed and receives a bit of a shock when one of his ex-wives appears with hands outstretched because she is "apartmentless" (Gerry sold his New York digs) and out of cash. The interaction between the two is heated and Gerry recalls his marriage to her and his other failed attempts at wedded bliss. Seems like Gerry is always being "coerced" into having affairs and one-night stands. (See what I mean about being a cad? ) However, troubling times are upon Gerry as he receives a letter and telephone calls from the "dream girl" who is in his book. Claiming she was a totally fictitious character, his mind starts to wonder aided by drugs, particularly Ambien (who knew?) in dreams that turn nightmarish.

Then one morning Gerry awakens and finds a nasty surprise at the end of his bed and the drug induced state he has been in, provides little in the way of memory. Certainly, something or someone sinister is afoot and as the story continues, we are more and more privy to his mind. While Gerry meanders down memory lane, we delve deeper into his character or lack thereof. He is despicable and there are times when reading and following his nightly dreams that one might think the devil is chasing Gerry.

The pace of the story is slow, but the ending is of the sort that makes one believe in karma. I enjoyed the book overall, although I kept on wondering how this all would tie together.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this psychologically

Dream Girl is the latest book by Laura Lippman. I have read and enjoyed other stories by Ms Lippman. In Dream Girl we are given the story with a lot of back and forth in various times. It took me almost 50% of the story before I had any interest in any of the characters. In my opinion the best thing about this book is the ending. I want to thank NetGally and Faber & Faber LTD for a copy to review.

What a treat! Part mystery, part scathing satire on literature and the publishing industry, this book takes a tight grip on the reader in the opening pages and does not let go. The in-jokes are hilarious, the pace intense and the end utterly satisfying, it's a fantastic read.

I LOVED the writing but this book was just not for me. This was my first book by Laura Lippman and I will definitely explore others, especially those with Tess Monaghan, as her brief cameo was my favorite part of this book. While I didn't hate Gerry as much as some reviewers, I did find his constant internal dialogue just over the top. It sometimes felt like free association where at some point I started to wonder what the original topic was. The story of the sled seems so pointless and even his other back stories did not help me understand him or like him any better. While I found the story creative and even thought some of Gerry's random thoughts were entertaining I just could not read every page. I started to skim along to see if there was anything relevant I needed to know before I got to the end. I think this is a book that readers will either love or hate - not much middle ground here.

Could not get into this one at all. The main character is so unlikable it’s hard to move past that in general but the supporting cast is as well. If you want to read a story about an author who is being stalked highly recommend the Plot or even Misery, which this was so trying to capture.

This marks my first experience with Lippman's writing - but I am sure that it won't be my last! I, for the most part, enjoyed reading this. The narrator, writer Gerry Anderson, is hard to like. He's awfully full of himself and just terrible with relationships of any kind. His interior monologue is frankly grating at times and really draws out the first part of the book,

But I do enjoy reading about writers and I appreciated many of the references to other books, movies and TV shows. The premise is something of a nod to Misery when Gerry suffers an accident that leaves him bed-bound and dependent on his assistant and a night nurse. But soon, Gerry seems haunted by more than his own boredom and inability to write - he's being contacted by someone claiming to be the real-life inspiration between his most famous book...

Well-plotted and with some genuine surprises - particularly at the end - I do wish that the beginning had been a bit livelier... building Gerry into this terrible man works well here, and certainly does bring him to life, but the start of the book really gets bogged down with his awful personality. I already have one of Lippman's earlier novels on my TBR, so I am looking forward to checking that out soon!

Dream Girl - Laura Lippman

The first book I've read by this author, but after seeing it was the book of the month choice by a well-respected reviewer I had to give it a try.

Our main character is Gerry Andersen, 61 years old, a well-respected author and occasional Creative Writing lecturer. His books have brought him wealth, with a few bestsellers and literary awards.

Having recently moved to a luxury apartment in Baltimore a domestic accident leaves him bed-bound, in traction and reliant on his Personal Assistant and a paid nurse for all his daily care.

In his drugged up state, strange things start happening including phone calls from a mysterious woman claiming to be who he based 'Aubrey' on, the best known character from his best known book 'Dream Girl'.

The phone calls and incidents get more sinister, threatening to expose Gerry's secrets and wrongdoing.

They are chapters which tell all about Gerry's history, his life and loves, and we get to know him very well. There are plenty of references to books and films, most of which I didn't know, which I'm sure would add more if you knew them.

Overall, it is unique, but I wasn't sure what it was, it is highly unpredictable, characterful, well told, but not really tense or thrilling, although it does really pick up in the second half building to a compelling conclusion.

Thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow

If I am honest, this is probably a 2 1/2 star book rounded up to 3. I have rounded up because the satire in this one is on point. I would describe this one as a Hitchcockian-style thriller framed by satire. I know this book was inspired in part by Stephen King's Misery, but I would say that if you are looking for a book that more closely aligns to Misery look at Goodnight, Beautiful. The stakes in that one are much higher. The stakes in this one are honestly low.

I think the stakes are low because our main character is quite simply an asshole. It is really hard to care about his predicament and to care about what happens to him. You could argue that is the point, but it does not make for a thrilling or horrific read. I only get scared in books if I care about what is going to happen to the character. I did not care. So... this was quite the slow-burn. The entire book is a slow-burn.

That all said, I actually laughed a fair bit. Again, while this is a thriller, it works better as a satirical tale more than anything. There is much of this that is very meta and Gerry as our unreliable narrator is a mostly amusing portrayal a self-absorbed, self-important author. In this the book truly succeeded.

So, to summarize it all, I would say this is a disappointing thriller but a still entertaining read if you are willing to roll with Gerry's self-important ramblings.

Having just finished Dream Girl by Laura Lippman, Lots of thoughts are twirling through my head! The author describes this book as a horror story but I think it is a psychological thriller. I have mixed feelings about this book. I read Lippman’s Sunburn and really enjoyed it.

I liked the set-up of the story. Gerry Andersen, a successful writer, had a serious accident and is confined to a hospital bed after severely injuring a leg. The story bounces around from the past to the present. As a reader in her seventh decade, I loved all the references to books like Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Misery, his mother’s worry about when long distance calls could be placed depending on the cost day or evening. I am sure many references would be glossed over by a younger reader. The title of the books Andersen wrote also foreshadowed the plot from Courting Disaster, Dream Girl (his most popular), to Isolation.

As a reader, I wondered if he was imagining what was happening in his apartment was the result of the Ambien and OxyContin that he was taking. The reader had to decide what was real and what wasn’t. Part of me is still trying to decide. This is a fun read and it will definitely keep the reader wondering what is real and what is not. Very clever. My thanks to Faber & Faber Ltd. and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

I certainly recommend this book. More details to come today but I wanted my approval noted on release day!

For a sixty-something novelist/writer, Gerry Andersen is in a seriously bad way, as dependent as a newborn. The floating staircase in his Baltimore residence proved to be his undoing. Now he's flat on his back with a broken arm and one leg in traction. Thank the powers that be his mind still functions although lately that seems to be a mixed blessing. His mother recently passed away and he had to watch helplessly as her once sharp mind succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer's. Gerry's biggest fear is that if not hereditary, it at least carries a strong familial tendency. Given his current situation, his imagination has unlimited hours to torment him with vivid flashbacks to his three failed marriages, his stalled writing career, and his myriad encounters with different women.

In between his inner musings and flashbacks, Gerry must submit to the grudging care doled out by his assistant and a belligerent night nurse. This  makes for seemingly endless days and nights, occasionally broken up by visits and phone calls from his agent who is pressuring him for a new book that will hopefully be another best seller. When mysterious phone calls from someone claiming to be Aubrey, the fictional character from his hit novel "Dream Girl" Gerry's imagination kicks into high gear causing him even more mental anguish. Making a bad scene even worse, his assistant and the night nurse claim there's no record of any phone calls. Is he losing his mind? Can the situation get any worse? When he wakes up one morning next to a dead woman, Gerry knows for certain that it can get worse. In fact, it just did.

In "Dream Girl" Laura Lippman offers up a horror story disguised as a psychological thriller. The protagonist is a literary snob with an elitist attitude so deeply ingrained it is nearly impossible to muster any sympathy for his plight. He's so self-absorbed it's a struggle to even like him. Added to that, his mile-wide Oedipus complex lends a borderline sense of eroticism to his childhood musings. That alone rates an eight out of a possible ten on my Creepy scale.

That said, Lippman brilliantly portrays Gerry's sense of despair and isolation as he lies in a hospital bed plopped amidst the luxurious surroundings of his recently purchased Baltimore high rise apartment. As his mind begins to clear from the pain meds, Gerry's fear is palpable and unrelenting and pulls the reader into his downward spiral. Lippman uses the floating stairs to illustrate the complexities of his arrogance and ambivalence, allowing the reader to at least have some regret for his unfortunate situation. On the minus side, I found the constant stream of his inner musings to be exhausting and somewhat pointless. While I didn't love this protagonist, Lippman's writing is flawless and fluid and a thing of beauty. Four stars.

Dream Girl is a subtle yet chilling psychological thriller from award-winning writer Laura Lippman in which the line between reality and fantasy, fact and fiction are inextricably blurred. After being injured in a freak accident, novelist Gerry Andersen lies in a hospital bed in his glamorous but sterile apartment, isolated from the busy world he can see through his windows, utterly dependent on two women he barely knows: his young assistant and a night nurse whose competency he questions. But Gerry is also beginning to question his own competency. As he moves in and out of dreamlike memories and seemingly random appearances of a persistent ex-girlfriend at his bedside, he fears he may be losing his grip on reality, much like his mother who recently passed away from dementia. Most distressing, he believes he’s being plagued by strange telephone calls, in which a woman claiming to be the titular character of his hit novel Dream Girl swears she will be coming to see him soon.

The character is completely fictitious, but no one has ever believed Gerry when he makes that claim. Is he the victim of a cruel prank—or is he actually losing his mind. There is no record of the calls according to the log on his phone. Could there be someone he has wronged? Is someone coming to do him harm as he lies helplessly in bed? Then comes the morning he wakes up next to a dead body—and realizes his nightmare is just beginning. This is a compulsive and irresistible literary thriller and the author evokes a wide variety of emotions making it a much more visceral and intelligent thriller than most. It's acutely perceptive, witty, keeps you guessing and is cleverly woven. Lippman has crafted a multilayered novel that switches back and forth in time and this serves to present the dark secrets, past violence and previous missteps haunting complex character Gerry in his old age. A scalpel-sharp, tense and timely read. Highly recommended.

My first Laura Lippman! And it definitely won't be my last. :)
Injured in a freak fall, novelist Gerry Andersen is confined to a hospital bed in his glamorous high-rise apartment, dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse. Then late one night, the phone rings. The caller claims to be the "real" Aubrey, the alluring title character from his most successful novel, Dream Girl. But there is no real Aubrey. She's a figment born of a writer's imagination, despite what many believe or claim to know. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry's life? And why does no one believe that the call even happened? Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and a dreamlike state in which he is haunted by his own past: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved. And now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that she is owed something. Is the threat real or is it a sign of dementia? Which scenario would he prefer? Gerry has never been so alone, so confused - and so terrified.
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early e-arc.*

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It is set to be published in June 2021.

"Dream Girl" by Laura Lippman was definitely not for me.
I was so intrigued when I read the blurb, but the actual book proved to be disappointing.
First of all, it's a book written by an American "boomer" author for American "boomer" readers. The narration is constantly interrupted by cultural references more or less obscure to anyone who is not American or was not born in the 50s. And when I say "constantly", I really mean *constantly*. More space is devoted to cultural references (movies, songs, business firms, politicians...) than to the actual story. The whole book feels like a never-ending series of inside jokes from which most readers are excluded. At first, I tried googling the references I didn't get on my own, but it quickly became too tiresome (there are multiple references in every single page and it's a 320-pages book, so that's A LOT of references); in the end, I just gave up. The cultural references are not particularly relevant to what's happening either, apparently they're there just because. This is also acknowledged in-story:
"His mind is lively this morning, his mind is itself again, hopscotching from cultural reference to cultural reference." Exhausting!
Jumping continuously back and forth in time - not between two different timelines, but from one timeline to random, out-of-order flashbacks - undoubtedly added to the confusion. Most of the flashbacks have no direct link to the story and are of no interest to the reader, they're just filler scenes to make the novel longer.
On top of that, there are plenty of aborted story arcs that to me, as a reader, felt like bait-and-switch. The first is when a private detective is called to investigate on the case: she makes an 8-pages-long appearance, she gets a very detailed description, she's shown as competent, compassionate, we get a glimpse of a very complex and interesting character... only for her to refuse to take the case and disappear from the novel forever, with the preposterous excuse that the apartment "gives her the creeps". To me, these 8 pages felt like a total waste of time--like the story had finally started going in a direction that showed great promise... but then it proved to be a dead end. And a completely pointless one. This being the first novel by Laura Lippman I read, I had no idea that private detective Tess Monaghan is actually the protagonist of a series of novels also by Laura Lippman, so all of Tess Monaghan's fans were super-excited to see their favourite character have a surprise cameo. Well, I wasn't excited. To me, this felt just like one more inside joke I wasn't in to and that was in no way relevant to the story I was reading.
The second aborted arc is about Gerry's Oedipus complex, which is alluded to several times, but never elaborated on. The most awkward example is: "Mom, you left your"--the word bra was impossible for him--"your, um, undergarments in the fridge." [...] He risked the word. "The bra, Mom?" And what about his obsession with women's calves? Gerry informs us that his mom had pretty calves, and then repeatedly remarks that all the other women he met afterwards had thick calves. That's quite an odd thing to get fixated on.
Then there are the plotholes: how can somebody who is not strong enough to lift a phone to their ear be tricked into thinking that he committed a murder? How on earth can he be convinced that he actually overpowered an able-bodied woman while being bedridden and severely deconditioned?
Other plothole: when he meets Gretchen for the first time, Gerry is in a club with friends; he goes to the toilet and there he meets Gretchen queueing for the ladies' room, he stops and talks to her while she's waiting, then when she comes out of the toilet they leave the pub together, and after that they go to a diner, have dinner, and finally he walks her home, but... whatever happened to Gerry's friends? It's 1986, he couldn't have texted them, so did he just leave them hanging there without even saying goodbye?
The parts that don't make any sense:
"He felt Lucy's nails rake his back, or maybe it was the letter opener"... Am I supposed to believe that a man wouldn't know the difference between being scratched by a woman's fingernails or being stabbed with a letter opener?
"What Aileen calls the 'commode'--the correct word, yet one that irritates him to no end"... Why? Why would anyone be bothered by the word 'commode'? Is this another one of those American quirks I don't get?
"They were especially dangerous when they had too much time to spare, given to cow-tipping and other stupid pranks"... Are you seriously trying to make me believe cow-tipping is a real prank happening in the real world? Sorry, but my suspension of disbelief doesn't stretch that far!
And what about Aileen's work schedule? She's stated to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week (that's 84 hours a week!), with no days off at all for several weeks in a row. That's way above what any State's labour laws would allow.
Last but not least, I really didn't appreciate the appallingly disparaging comments about the nursing profession that are interspersed through the novel: "He spends all his time in this bed, his leg suspended, a nurse attending to his needs, although not very cheerfully. He supposes he should not expect anything more than competence from someone who makes a living wiping adult bottoms and emptying bedpans." "Gerry wants to protest, to insist that it is his prerogative to 'bother' her as much as he likes, given the wages he will be paying her, but he decides she's what people now label as 'on the spectrum'. A little dense, emotionally and mentally, artless as a child, garrulous as a senior citizen. Perhaps that's a good quality for someone whose job involves wiping another person's ass." That's a very insulting and very untrue representation of what a nurse does. It's likely due to ignorance, since the protagonist (and quite possibly the author as well) seems to ignore everything about the nursing profession, even the difference between a nurse and a nursing aide: the two expressions are used interchangeably through the course of the book, and this is by a protagonist who is extremely fastidious about the correct names of every little thing (he describes himself as "fussy about words").
And what to say about the protagonist himself? Someone who finds out that the woman he raped years ago was actually his secret niece and has nothing better to say to her than "I am so sorry for the pain the men in my family have caused the women in your family"? What kind of a lame apology is that? By a man capable of wondering "Is it so wrong that he wants to hold her head under water every time she ends a sentence on a rising note?" and "He had set out to be as different from his father as possible. When the day came that he succumbed to another woman--a woman who was actively pursuing him--he practically wept as he bent her over his desk and sodomized her."
Overall, this was the first book by Laura Lippman I read, and it'll definitely be the last.