The Twisted Window – Lois Duncan (Review)

ebook, 184 pages

Published August 28th 2012 by Open Road Young Readers (first published May 1st 1987)

 

Description

The new guy at Tracy’s school is handsome, intense, and desperately needs her help—but there’s something about him that isn’t quite right.

High school junior Tracy Lloyd is unsure about the new guy in school. Brad Johnson is attractive, smart, and polite, but Tracy can’t help but feel he watches her too closely. Then one day Brad confides in Tracy a horrible secret: His little sister Mindy has been kidnapped by his stepfather, and he needs Tracy’s help to get her back. But even as Tracy commits to a plan to help her vulnerable new friend, details emerge that suggest nothing is what it seems.
The Twisted Window is a zigzagging thriller that keeps readers guessing up until the final page. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

My thoughts

I’ve never read anything written by Lois Duncan before and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It is a page turner and you have to read until the last chapter to receive the answers to your questions: Why and when has Brad became so disturbed and what exactly happened to Mindy, his little sister?

The story begins with Brad searching for a particular type of girl to help him out. We don’t know why and what his plan is (for a few pages I actually thought he was a murderer who was looking for his next victim), but he finds Tracy who seems to be the right choice. She is attracted to him and she thinks he is interested in her, but soon she finds out that’s not the case. He just wants her help to get back his sister who has been kidnapped by his stepfather. Brad has good answers to all of Tracy’s questions (why isn’t the police involved, why is he hiding from his mother the fact that he found Mindy?…) and he convinces her to help. She mainly agrees because she is angry with her father abandoning her to her uncle and aunt’s home and she makes a connection between her story and Mindy’s.
After succeeding in helping Brad she finds out that he is not exactly what he seemed, that everything was far from the truth. She realises that she made a bad decision trusting him and now she has to fix her mistake.

I liked that the story was told from alternating point of views, mainly from Tracy’s and Brad’s, that it was full of suspense, twists and turns and I think the author did a good job describing the characters.

I think that Tracy’s decision of helping Brad was rushed…he was a stranger, a person whom she met only a couple of days before. I understand that there were some events that triggered her decision, but still…she could of seen that there was something odd about Brad’s behavior. There were many signs that indicated the fact that she was making a mistake, but she saw them too late.

The Twisted Window is an intense YA thriller and I recommend it to others.
Thanks to Netgalley.com and Open Road Media for sending me this e-book.

My rating

Different covers

    

You can buy it from Amazon, The Book Depository.