I really liked The Dreamers so I was holding my breath until the end while reading this one. Read this if you like character studies, psychological anomalies, and concepts that tease the edges of our known realities.

Jane is a new mother and librarian in New York City. Then she disappears overnight, leaving her son at daycare, only to be found unconscious the next day in Prospect Park. Her story is told through letters to her son and through her psychiatrist. Why do strange things keep happening to her? This is a fascinating page-turner that should appeal to a broad audience.

Like the title says, this is a really strange book. It is a very quick and easy read so if you are interested it’s still worth reading to come to your own conclusions.
The Strange Case of Jane O. tells the story of a woman suffering from strange fugue episodes where she loses all track of time and memory for a few days. The story is told alternating between the perspective of her psychiatrist and in letters Jane writes to her young son. The story moves quickly and the mystery of what exactly is going on with Jane is quite intriguing but the ending is very abrupt and is just not adequately explored. I definitely preferred Karen Thompson Walker’s two previous excellent books.
Thank you Netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy of this book.

I gave this a 2.5 stars but rounded up.

This started off really strong for me, but I feel it could have been much shorter.

Thank you NetGalley, the author, and Random House Publishing Group for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

🥰Thank you so much to @randomhouse for the gifted book!

📖Title: The Strange Case of Jane O.
✍️Author: Karen Thompson Walker
📅Pub Date: February 25, 2025

🛋️If you're looking for a TRIPPY read that you won't be able to put down after the first minute (and I'm so serious about this, the very first minute), then you need to start this one as soon as it comes out on Tuesday, February 25th!

🧠The writing style was instantly addictive. It was told first from the perspective of a psychiatrist sharing the story of one of the strangest cases he's ever encountered, and second from Jane herself in the form of letters written to her young son.

🛋️Dr. Henry Byrd's perspective read like a memoir, as if a real psychiatrist was simply telling his story. It felt like I was listening to a true-crime podcast during his sections. The writing felt deeply personal as if I was just listening in on his innermost thoughts.

🧠 Things get crazy when Jane is found unconscious in a NYC park. She failed to pick up her young son from daycare, and has no memory of the last day or how she ended up in the park. Dr. Byrd takes it upon himself to get the bottom of what happened to Jane during the time when her memory lapsed. As he becomes more invested in the mystery, he also becomes invested in Jane herself.

🛋️The layers of this story are deep, and profound, and it truly felt like a mind exercise at certain points. I mean that only as a compliment. I have never read anything quite like this before!

🧠I'll be recommending this one for a long time!

This was such an intriguing story! I went in blind and really liked having no idea what to expect. It was a mash-up of genres- psychological drama, science fiction and mystery. It had a melancholic thread throughout. It features an unreliable narrator who begins seeing a psychiatrist after having black out periods where she remembers nothing. Which is troubling enough- but even more so when we learn that she is a single mom with a very young son to take care of. The entire time I had no idea how this was going to turn out. The look into and discussions of some mental illnesses was very interesting.

Even though I’m not 100% that I fully understood the ending, it took me by surprise and I really enjoyed reading this one,

A beautiful story of Jane, written both through her letters to her son and through her psychologist. She's known for her reliability, yet has strange cases of meetings with people who have died and then subsequently deals with amnesia. This would be a great segue way into speculative fiction. Highly recommend!!

I love Karen Thompson Walker and love speculative fiction, and I got both here! Jane's case IS strange and made for a unique plot device when she couldn't remember anything. It got a little redundant but the ending satisfied me. A quick, easy read that will keep your brain occupied.

I am not a fan of books about new mothers and boy do they abound lately. I am however, a fan of books about psychology/psychiatry and a huge fan of The Age of Miracles so I was willing to give The Strange Case of Jane O a shot and I am really glad that I did.

In the fog of motherhood, Jane is leading a quite (maybe too quiet) life in NYC, working at a library. One day she receives a warning from someone she knows to be dead. This hallucination (?) prompts Jane to seek out the help of Dr. Byrd, and the story unravels from there. There is a lot going on in this story and I can't say I always understood it but I did enjoy it. Jane's story had all the twists and turns of a Blake Crouch story but with the heart of character we all know and love from Karen Thompson Walker. I truly never guessed where the story would end up and while I can see the ending being divisive, I enjoyed it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Jane is a young single mother of a toddler lives in NYC and works at the library. She leads a rather banal life. However, one day while getting off the train she sees a person that she knew 20 years ago and has an unsettling conversation with them. He warns her of coming trouble. The problem is, the man died years earlier. Has she hallucinated this entire experience? This brings her to a psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd. The more he hears Jane's story and the troubling incidents, the more fascinated he becomes.

While the premise is good and the scifi pieces well done, there is not a lot that is going on in the story until the ending. I think the format of the Dr telling the story from his case notes reads very clinically, and I had a hard time staying engaged in the story.

Overall, the idea is great but the execution could have been better.

Walker has given us a propulsive psychological story with <i>Jane O</i> - this is definitely more of a character driven book as opposed to a thriller but there is mystery via unreliable narrations that kept me turning the pages to find out what the truth was. It falls a bit into speculative territory but it’s best to go into this a bit blind because I really couldn’t tell where this story was going.

Well, well, well.

This was easily one of my most anticipated reads of 2025. Halfway through I texted one of my reading friends (Hi, @novelvisits! 👋🏼), "I am in the middle of Jane O and I am really liking it." At the time, I meant it...I love Karen Thompson Walker's writing style, I was into the mystery of what the heck was happening with Jane, and the psychiatrist aspect added that physiological thriller element that captured me.

But it started losing steam shortly after I sent that text. It seemed to get slightly repetitive, the mystery continued to be stirred up but we weren't really heading anywhere new with it, and it felt tedious to continue reading. Thank goodness this one is short (288 pages), so I pushed through.

The ending was a MASSIVE disappointment. I'm not saying some people will find it interesting - I am saying it wasn't for me. I felt totally let down. It felt too simple, it felt lazy, and it didn't do anything for me.

The title, The Strange Case of Jane O is so fitting for this book because it was a strange story indeed, that I could not wrap my head around! It was a mind blowing speculative fiction story about a young mom who experiences psychological issues. Both characters were unreliable, which amplified the mystery surrounding the mom’s disappearance. I didn’t know who or what to believe. I kept wanting to discuss the book with my family to help make sense what I had just read. I was also impressed with how much research the author conducted to write this novel. I highly recommend this book, especially for book clubs as it is thought provoking and entertaining.

The Strange Case of Jane O. is thought provoking, exceptionally well crafted, and entirely unexpected — Karen Thompson kept me guessing until the very end. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time!

One of the worst parts of loving an author so much is that you are bound to be let down at some point. Well, this was the time for me, apparently. Where the previous two books grabbed me and got me page-turning immediately, this book felt slow and dragging and not sure where it was going. I didn't really care for either character and never felt the WOW BRILLIANT I felt with the first two works from this author. So, does that mean it was an unenjoyable book or just didn't live up to my expectations? I think a bit of both. The premise was an interesting one but for some reason it didn't play well. And when the pandemic (not Covid) was introduced it just lost me even more. Now I will wait for the next book from this author because while this one was just okay, I know what this author can do and I am here for it!

The Strange Case of Jane O. was a strange read in a good way. I wasn’t sure what was going on for a long time, I eventually figured it out, but still was left with the kind of ambiguous ending that leaves room for speculation. The book was a little slower paced but I did enjoy the eerie tone and sense of impending doom the novel has.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I have been a big fan of Karen Thompson Walker as her books are one of the few that stick with me for a very long time. I was thrilled to be able to get a galley of this book. This novel is the story of a therapist that begins working with a woman who is experiencing very bizarre symptoms. The question becomes- is she trustworthy or is she a candidate for a unique and rare disorder? I was intrigued from the very beginning and found myself picking up this book every time I was able. Thank you to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. Three days after her first visit to a psychiatrist, Jane suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her. Her psychiatrist must delve into the farthest reaches of her mind to try to discern whether these episodes stem from being overwhelmed by motherhood, or are they manifestations of a long-buried trauma from her past?

I normally love this author's books, and there has been so much hype over this book, I was sure I would love this one as well. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It was a slow burn for the entire book. The characters all felt one-dimensional, and the storyline just seemed to meander along. The writing was very dry and clinical, because the portion told in the voice of the psychiatrist was mainly case notes. Overall this was a solid 3 out of 5.

First five star read of the year! If you're considering reading this book, I would say avoid reading any reviews. You can read this one! I won't tell you what happens, but I think it's good to go into this one without any preconceived notions and I think other reviews may give too much away.

This book sucked me in and didn't let go, and that doesn't happen near as much as it used to--it's usually very hard for me to read at a long stretch lately without getting distracted. But I couldn't put this one down.


Jane O's story is told in alternating sections between the notes of her psychiatrist and her own journal, which she addresses as letters to her young son. From the beginning you know she has had an episode in which she lost time and doesn't remember what happened for a whole day. What unfolds from there is quite remarkable and had me riveted and emotionally invested.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this novel. This was an engaging story of a psychiatric patient and her doctor, as told from each of their points of view over the course of a few months in NYC in 2018. The roots and causes of the patient's condition are thoroughly explored by both patient and doctor, and both of their lives are excavated to try to understand the point to which they each have come. The writing style is unique and engaging because the doctor's POV is provided via case notes, and the patient's POV is provided via a journal. This book reminded me of Sea of Tranquility because it was a literary exploration of a concept that is more commonly explored in science fiction. Because I read a lot of science fiction, the arc of the story became fairly obvious at some point, and the concept not as thoroughly explored as has been done in sci fi. However, I was interested until the end, and the uniqueness of the format definitely helped to keep me engaged. It is a quick read.