WHY!? Why you do me this way, Behind Closed Doors? What did I do to deserve such aggravation? 10 out of 10 triggered.
Hahaha, in all seriousness, I loved (L-O-V-E-D) this book so much and I am so happy to be here to tell you all about it. So, girlfriend, go make yourself comfortable and get ready to be gaslit (gaslighted?) second-handedly thanks to B. A. Paris and her exquisite, yet malevolent, main character—whom I did not (did not!) grow to adore—Mr. Jack Angel.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Few are the fiction authors whose writing style is so captivating I cannot put down their books and each paragraph, each chapter, feeds a sort of hunger that can only be satiated by more words, more prose. In the case of this thriller and suspense masterpiece, B. A. Paris kept nourishing me non-stop by way of psychological fiction, even if each bite hurt and made me feel sick, I could not stop asking for more, no, demanding for more as it was simply too delicious.
From the very start we were made aware that Grace Angel, Jack’s wife, was hiding something sinister and none of her acquaintances had a clue of it (well, Esther kind of did) and it was heartbreaking learning little by little how despicable Jack, the perfect husband and perfect lawyer, really was. Behind Closed Doors was Grace’s story told by her while jumping from The Past to The Present in each chapter and, in a brilliantly told way, she gave us morsels of information in one chapter to only jump to the next to lead us to believe that whatever we thought happened might had happened (the narrative played with time), to then—bam!—confirm in the next one, and in gut-wrenching graphic detail, that indeed it did. The best way I can describe this literary back and forth dance would be to compare it to sex; the rhythm from one chapter only got amplified on the next to only explode in the following one.
Now, having said that, did I like to learn that Jack allegedly killed his mom when he was a teenager and worshiped his violent dad to only blame him for his crime? No, I did not. Did I like to learn that Jack gave Grace a dog to only starve it to death? No, I didn’t! Did I enjoy learning of Jack’s plan to use Grace to get to Millie, Grace’s younger sister with Down syndrome, so he could torture her? NO! OF COURSE NOT! But did I appreciate how he did all those things? Mmmh, I mean, I was not mad about it…
Please, hear me out, don’t judge me too hard, okay? I feel like you can tell where I am coming from, given that we are both horror fans with a soft spot for troubled, good looking, bad boys… what was that? How do I know he was good looking? Oh, damn, I actually don’t know but all I can say is that the whole time I was picturing him like this:
[I can thank The Invisible Man (2020) for the male image cue due the movie’s subject on domestic abuse… *eye roll*]
So, as I was saying, Jack was problematic but in a non-repulsive kind of way and, truth be told, on the chapter where Grace escapes from her room and tries to hide downstairs in the pitch-black sitting area while doing her best not to make a sound so Jack wouldn’t find her, he, all of the sudden, breathes on her right cheek and says “Boo!”—AAAH!—I lost it here. I loved that my brain was being extra generous with me in that specific moment and let me enjoy that scene to the maximum by ‘feeling’ Jack’s breath on my own right cheek and by ‘hearing’ that Boo on my right ear and by giving me goose bumps so hard that I had to put the book down and stand up to shake it off. (Yes, I looked like a crazy person when this happened but I mean who cares.)
I am not going to talk about the ending but I will say this, I wish Grace had been there with Jack when “it” happened so that we could have heard all the gory juicy details, alas, just by knowing that “it” happened and that Esther had Grace’s back (God bless her female instinct) and that she and Millie were now free and safe, girl, that was all we could have really asked for.
If I didn’t make myself clear, this book was such a hard hitter that at times it made me feel gross and triggered and offended and, at other times (most of the times?), the total opposite (don’t judge me). I would highly recommend Behind Closed Doors if you are in the mood for mind games and some good old fashioned gaslighting all while being entertained by a handsome psychopath. #sorryNOTsorry
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
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