THE STRANGE CASE OF JANE O. is a potent reminder that we all contain multitudes and the human mind is a mysterious place. Told in alternating perspectives between a psychiatrist and his client, the story reads like a clinical case study of a young mother’s unexplainable dissociation from her body. While the plot was focused on the internal state of Jane’s mind, it felt propulsive in that I had to know where Jane’s mind went during the spells when her body was living out another existence than her reality. This was a fascinating and haunting story that I will continue to think about long after I’ve closed the last page.


READ THIS IF YOU:
are intrigued by the complexity of the human mind
enjoy stories set in New York City
have ever had a feeling of deja vu

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: February 25, 2025

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The strange case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker is my first book by this author. As a retired nurse (although not psychiatric) I found her descriptions of psychiatric issues: amnesia, hallucinations and premonitions very well explained, even for those not familiar with these conditions.
I love a good mystery: is Jane O. really suffering from amnesia, seeing deceased people from her past or is it some deception on her part? Walker's skill as a writer handles this back and forth well.
I found this book somewhat slow in the beginning, but it gradually picked up speed.
Not wanting to give anything important away, I'll just say that Walker presents her ending hypothesis gradually and with little fan fare. I would encourage reading the ending very carefully, as she only briefly explains what she thinks is the underlying cause.

The Age of Miracles is one of my favorite books, so when I saw this on NetGalley, I pounced, and was not disappointed. The story is told from two points of view: Dr. Byrd, a widowed therapist and now single dad of a little girl, and Jane, a single mom who is experiencing some very strange episodes, like conversating with a long dead friend and losing huge chunks of time. To reveal anything more would deprive readers of peeling back the onion on this story for themselves. My only complaint is that I wanted a little more from the ending. Another beautifully written, thought-provoking novel from Ms. Walker.

Jane has begun to suffer strange episodes - amnesia, hallucinations, premonitions and she begins to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd. But just 3 days after her first appointment, she vanishes, only to be found later in a park with no recollections of what happened. Throughout the book, we alternate between Jane’s narration of her life, and what Dr. Byrd is finding as he works with Jane, including an alternate sense of reality.

As someone who absolutely loved Karen Thompson Walker’s first novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES, I was so excited to receive an advanced copy of this, her third book. At first, I was uncertain what I thought about the novel - or more specifically, if I thought others would like it. Through Dr. Byrd’s eyes, we’re focusing heavily on the psychological part of Jane’s case, which comes across as formal and sort of detached, while also being moderately deep in the weeds of the mind. For me, I loved it. I’ve always been fascinated by psychology, even studying it for a brief time in college.

Moving into Jane’s parts felt more novel-like as she was writing letters to her one year old son, through what she remembers - including pieces of her past. But then as it all began to come together, that’s when I saw the real genius of this novel AND a big twist that came that lead into the end of the novel. I loved the way that the author brought it all together while I was left questioning what exactly was happening.

As with her two other novels (her second was THE DREAMERS), Thompson Walker takes seemingly normal scenarios and flips them on their heads in the most interesting ways that really make you think about your own life and reality. I’m excited to see what more people think of this novel - and especially to talk about the ending with someone!

I don't know how to write a review for this book. There are certain things you know after reading this book that you absolutely cannot know going into the story. The format took me a minute to get into- notes from a psychiatrist discussing his confusing patient, and letters from said patient to her son. This book was absolutely right up my alley given some of my interests and beliefs. Karen Thompson Walker has written nothing that I have not given five stars. I cannot wait to continue reading everything she writes the moment it comes out (or before!). Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a big fan of Karen Thompson Walker's previous books, I was delighted to see this available on NetGalley. The Strange Case of Jane O., as one might assume, follows Jane O. and her strange case of amnesia. She hasn't forgotten her whole life, just small bits of it. Or so we think! Throughout the book, we follow Jane, and and her psychotherapist, as he tries to uncover what exactly happened to her.

Throughout the book, we flip back and forth from Jane and her therapist's POV. I loved this approach, and I was always excited to see what the other person was experiencing. They were both somewhat unreliable narrators, which I enjoyed a lot!

I really enjoy Karen Thompson Walker's writing, and that remains true for this book. The characters were also super interesting! I read this very quickly, and can't wait to recommend it and read it again.

A young mother is found in a Brooklyn park after being missing for over 24 hours with no recollection of how she got there or where she’s been during that period, and the police have questions. We follow The Strange Case of Jane O through a retelling by her psychiatrist, as well as through Jane’s letters to her son, and as the story progresses, more strange events happen to Jane as the police and her doctor struggle to decipher these occurrences. This is a thought-provoking, beautifully written thriller that has the reader spellbound, unsure where the story is leading us to, and the author keeps us unbalanced as more details of Jane’s illness are revealed. The less told here the better, you’ll appreciate the story all the more! Loved the plot, the writing and the characters, this is a winner. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent psychological suspense! When Jane starts experiencing hallucinations, a deep sense of dread, and missing time, she seeks out the help of a psychiatrist, Dr Byrd. Told through alternating perspectives between the psychiatrist, who is trying to come up with a diagnosis, and Jane’s personal diary, the mystery unfolds in a compelling, twisty, and ultimately satisfying way. I loved the deep dive into the world of psychiatry. Is Jane experiencing true dissociative fugue? Is she just being manipulative or an unreliable narrator? I loved coming up with my own theories and then being surprised as new details came to light.

This was fascinating, well researched, literary but easy to read, compelling, and kept me reading late into the night. I highly recommend this to those who enjoy a good puzzle, psychological suspense, and are OK with some speculative fiction elements.

I loved her novel, Age of Miracles, and loved this one as much or even a bit more. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I am not the reader for psychiatrist patient stories. This was dry and detached, had no real resolution and then just ended. I should have DNFed.

I loved this book so much! To me it felt very unique among the books I am reading right now, a woman who has amnesia and is trying to figure out what happened during the time she can't remember, with the help of a psychiatrist. It just went in all different directions that I did not expect, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I really liked the characters. It's so nice to read something a little different!

An absolute stunner of a psychological thriller - it took me less than 2 days to finish "The Strange Case of Jane O." and I have no regrets.

Told from alternating perspectives, the novel opens with Dr. Henry Byrd, a psychologist in NYC who's introduced to his most intriguing patient yet: Jane O. Jane is a single mother to her infant son Caleb who resides in Brooklyn in works at the NYPL. Their first session results in little being said and Jane leaving abruptly - only for Byrd to receive a call from the hospital, informing him that Jane has vanished for nearly a full day, leaving her son at the daycare, waking up hours later at Prospect Park with no recollection of what happened. Jane continues to visit Dr. Byrd and he's able to piece together more on her background, including her hyperthymesia (photographic memory), which makes her amnesia even more out-of-the-norm; her childhood when a close friend named Nico took his own life; and her struggles as a single mother.

Jane's perspective is also shared in the form of letters to her son Caleb, an exercise that Dr. Byrd encourages her to begin. We learn more about her from this vantage, including the details of what happened when she was a teenager in NYC and befriended Nico - and just how disturbing her visions of him as a grown adult in the present are. As Jane begins to question her own brain and being, we're pulled into her world and her vision... and slowly begin to piece together how her next dissociative fugue lasts much longer, causing an uproar in the city as she's announced a missing person and her photograph is shared across multiple channels. Little by little, the many disparate components of her and Byrd's stories come together, shedding light on each of their pasts.

From the first few pages, I was hooked into this story - both Jane and Henry Byrd are presented as compelling characters and as we learn more into each of their backstories, more and more of them are called into question. Can we trust Jane, despite the near-perfection of her memory? What about Dr. Byrd, especially given his own past research that led to him being shunned by the medical community, and his own mixed feelings towards Jane? I thought Walker did an incredible job adopting two completely different voices and tones, and her concise, methodological writing blended well for this type of novel. While there are no firm conclusions by the end of the novel, I love the ending and just how much is left onto the reader to interpret.

Very much a recommended read when "The Strange Case of Jane O." is published in Feburary 2025!

This book is written in a way that it feels like you're reading a doctor's case notes and a journal written by one of his patients, and I loved it. It’s told from two points of view, Jane the patient and her psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd. The writing is very dry because it is a very clinical tale but it is also very straight to the point, which was another aspect I enjoyed.

The book is twisty, but not in the way you may think and it's also very intelligently written. It's a very good character study and case study if you will. This was an utterly unique premise that was executed wonderfully. I highly recommend going into this one blind because the less you know the more interesting it will be. I will say it's a multi-genre tale. It's science fiction, mystery, suspense and literary fiction all rolled into one and it’s done extremely well.

I am left wondering if this will be a series and I certainly hope so because I would love to go on another Journey with Jane to see how she and Caleb are doing in the future. That says a lot because I am not into reading series. The blurb says it's a literary puzzle and pieces of the puzzle fit together nicely by the end but you'll still close this book scratching your head and wanting more. That’s why I hope there is another book on the horizon. I was surprised by this one, in a really good way.

I just want to add that I loved the name of the bookstore in the story. I thought it was fabulous that the author came up with that.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Karen Thompson Walker's The Strange Case of Jane O. offers an intriguing blend of mystery, memory, and the complexities of the mind. It follows Jane’s unsettling journey, where hallucinations, forgotten moments, and premonitions create a story of trauma, identity, and the bonds that hold us—even as reality begins to slip away. The pacing is steady and keeps the reader engaged, especially with Jane’s letters to her infant son, which give a glimpse into her mind. This narrative device intimately explores her need to protect her child from the strange experiences that haunt her.

While I wouldn’t call it "spellbinding," I found it unique, well-crafted, and absorbing. The visions, the love between mother and child, and the mysterious link to a man from Jane’s past add layers to the puzzles contemplated within.

“In a mystery novel, when a person goes missing, someone else does the looking. But at this point, I feel as though I am the searcher and the sought. I am found but still lost.”

WHAT’S THE STORY?

Jane is having trouble. She’s living alone with her infant son when her mind becomes a strange, seemingly unknowable place. Enter Dr. Byrd, a psychiatrist with whom she seems mysteriously connected. Alternating between Dr. Byrd’s case file and Jane’s journals, the reader puzzles to understand the mystery of Jane herself. What can these premonitions and amnesic episodes tell us about the nature of memory, selfhood and love?

WHAT WORKED?

Anything Karen Thompson Walker writes works for me. I too am consumed with questions about identity and the nature of memory and time, and am always eager to see how Walker plays with these ideas. What stands about this novel for me, is the authors’ ability to raise questions about the linearity of time without writing a time travel story. Brilliant.

WHAT DIDN’T?

Although it certainly worked for the story, I never felt emotionally connected to either Jane or Dr. Byrd. I cared about what happened to them, but they both struck me as removed and distant personalities. This is not necessarily a flaw in the story telling, but had they felt closer, the themes would have hit even harder and closer to home.

HOW DID IT WORK FOR ME?

This novel was a treat from start to finish. Having the perspectives of both Dr. Byrd and Jane contributed to the foggy tension of the narrative. I’ll never tire of this kind of nuanced exploration of the mind.

𝑶𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒚, 𝑰 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑫𝒓. 𝑩𝒚𝒓𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆. 𝑯𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏. 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈- 𝑰 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒚.
This novel stole my breath. I love it so much I need to buy a copy. How do we know ourselves if we lose time, or memory? I can’t think of anything more terrifying than not being able to rely on your own mind, except being swallowed by that darkness when you’re a single mom raising an infant. Dr. Henry Byrd’s first appointment with Jane as his patient is abrupt, but he senses her soul deep loneliness. She stands up after a short time, unable to unload what is pressing on her mind, and flees only saying ‘this was a mistake.’ It was a fourteen-minute meeting, and she leaves before he can convince her to stay. Three days later he is stunned when he gets a call from the emergency room about a woman found unconscious on a field in Prospect Park. He learns there was nothing to identify her until she woke up and remembered her name is Jane and that he, Dr. Henry Byrd, is her doctor.

When he arrives, Jane is pulled together, no longer in the disheveled state she was found in. The last thing she can recall is that she dropped her son off at daycare and then went back to her apartment to make tea, her daily routine. Nothing else that followed makes sense. It is a black hole in her memory. How could a rational woman with nothing traumatic in her history suffer such an event? The only thing she remembers is feeling dread, as if waking from a terrible dream. Is she to be believed? She tells him that she had been his patient before, years ago. How could he have forgotten?

Perplexing as disorders of the psyche can be, Jane’s case is particularly disturbing. He feels unsettled when he leaves her, as if her sadness covers him. He is surprised when she shows up for her appointment, opening up about her greatest fear- that it will happen again and how it feels when she returns to herself. It was if she didn’t exist during those lost hours. She seems to be probing him, to be sure she can fully trust him. She admits to hallucinations, seeing a man she knows is dead, talking to him as if he is still alive and startled by the warning he gave her to leave the city. As she reveals more with each session, he learns just how gifted her mind truly is, adding another layer of mystery to diagnosis. Dr. Henry Byrd longs to keep clinical detachment, but he cannot deny he is deeply invested, more so than he has been over any other patient. He is drawn to her, doctors are people too, and there is much to be fascinated and intimidated by behind Jane’s eyes. Doctors too have favorite patients.

Could her extraordinary memory be the cause of the terrors of her mind? She is often suspicious, distrusting of other people. When it happens again, the detective doubts her story, but will Dr. Byrd believe her?

This is such a beautiful story; I am not a sappy person, but I got choked up. Her letters to her little boy, the state of feeling like an outsider, the breaks in her mind, the longing to connect with people who do not remember as hard as she does, that ‘false sense of familiarity’ she carries, like a curse. Loneliness so deep you can taste it, remembering sharp sadness. She is very afraid and cannot say why. Haunted by Nico, is he a ghost, a hallucination? Then there is the sweet relief of love, of a hand that lifts you. Do you trust Jane, who cannot trust herself? Will Dr. Byrd? Or will he turn his back on her in her time of need?

Yes, read it. I don’t think my review begins to express how much I was absorbed by Jane whose life I could only endure as a witness. A gorgeous, mysterious read that found me at the perfect time. How do books do that anyway?

Publication Date: February 25, 2025

Random House

This book was amazing. The story was so unique, but something so very clearly written by this author, it is hard to describe. The story, unlike many that I have read, has stuck with me so long after having finished this book. We follow a story of a woman who begins forgetting periods of her life, and the story does not end there. The woman appears to be misremembering periods. The story was so well thought out, and so pertinent but extremely engaging and interesting. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed this author's previous works, or who enjoys a good mystery/thriller/fiction.

This ebook was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. I was thrilled when I received a copy of The Strange Case of Jane O. to review for Netgalley. Karen Thompson Walker has been one of my favorite writers since her first book, The Age of Miracles. I consider that book one of my top five favorite books of all time and I'm about to add The Strange Case of Jane O. to that list. Ms. Walker never ceases to amaze me with her writing. Jane is a woman who seeks out a psychiatrist that she is convinced she met many years ago. Dr. Bryd is trying to come up with a fitting diagnosis for her and the closest he can come is dissociative fugue." Jane is the single mother to a one year old son. Her confusion and loss of time starts to alarm the doctor and her parents. She sees a man she knew long ago but knew him to be dead. She wanders the city with and without her son and doesn't remember what happens during the episodes. The story is part mystery, part light science fiction and part literary fiction. Ms. Walker draws the reader into the story with interesting characters and a setting that is relatable.

I have read both of KTW's previous works and both of them were pretty good 4 star reads. They weren't books that particularly stuck out or that carved outa place my memory, but they weren't entirely forgettable either. I can look back and remember what they were about even tho it's been years since I read them, which is more than I can say for a lot of books. I remember enjoying them as I was reading, the sort of books that keep you reading consistently and often, without ever crossing over into 5 stsar territory. And that was exactly how I felt about this one. While I was reading this, this was probably my favorite of the 3, the most enticing, the one that I read the fastest in the shortest amount of time.

BUT. It was the ending that lowered this to a star book. So basically a guy dies, and a relative that's sniffing around discovers that there are similarities between that death and several other deaths--all of them had a mysterious woman in common. So then we proceed to follow all the various POVs of the people who have these encounters with said woman. It was actually quite interesting, but the last quarter of the book got a little tedious, it was one of those situations where you're into something in a book and it's working until it stops working bc it's been going on too long. Like ok now we've gotten like 5 stories of people with this chick, I'm ready for the next thing now, but you still have to endure more stories.

AND THENNNNN. The ending. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I AM going to say that you're not going to get any resolution. ANd if there's anything that I absolutely despise, is a book with a mystery that never gets a resolution. So the 4-4.25 star reading experience dropped to a 3 bc of the disappointing ending. It was still an entertaining read and certainly a page turner, it was a thriller horror mix. There were obvious super natural vibes which I wasn't expecting, but it was very light so non horror readers can still partake. it was just that ending, Too bad but I'd be interested in her future releases.

This starts out as a really interesting thriller and becomes something very different. The voices of the characters are clearly developed.

I feel like this was good on an objective level, but I did struggle to get through it. I haven't read Walker's other two novels The Age of Miracles and The Dreamers, but seeing how well-liked they are, I'm going to assume my inability to stay checked-in when reading this is entirely my own fault, but my mind wandered a lot when reading.

It ends interestingly, and the way the book is built is clever, but I feel like the actual content just couldn't keep me hooked without a struggle.