A novel that frightened me as much as it had me enthralled! Can a character appear from within the pages of a book? And can it haul the author? Those are the questions that are the crux of this excellent story.

Lippman’s book ‘Dream Girl’ is a captivating psychological thriller that kept me wanting to know more. This is the first book I’ve read from this author and I am quite surprised on how good the writing was. It was different reading about a character that you didn’t really root for, but nonetheless it made this book unique. The random flashbacks had me a bit confused at times, so that’s probably the only thing I didn’t necessarily like, but overall it was a great book. I’m probably going to read other works from this author. Thanks NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book!

I was so excited to receive this book. I loved her past work and this did not disappoint! The characters were so well established, and the book didn't feel like anything else I've ever read. Loved it!

I love books about writers and this one was refreshingly original. Lots of dark humour throughout and some genuinely creepy moments. I loved the style of writing and couldn't help liking Gerry Anderson despite his questionable behaviour and attitudes over the years.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Laura Lippman's books and will be reading more.

How often do you say "I won't do things like my mother." That's a vow our narrator Gerry makes, he does not want to be like his father. Gerry, however, has been divorced three times and mentions some lovers or one-night stands.
Lippman, our author, has long been a favorite. She has been a voracious reader. Gerry, also a novelist, teaches about writing, thus this book Dream Girl details other books and movies.
Several flashbacks in Dream Girl, plus several women, thus it was a bit hard to keep straight on what was going on. Quite a story, and I'm so glad I read this book.
Interesting note: Lippman's recurrent detective Tess Monaghan makes a brief cameo appearance!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for offering me a chance to read this fabulous book in return for an honest review. This book gave me the feels of Stephen kings misery novel (in a good way). It was also very current in its me2 theme.
The plot was interesting. The characters were complex and I could not stand Gerry. I feel like that was the point, having a narrator that was unreliable and unlikable, yet you wanted him to survive so we could at least figure out why they things that were happening were happening to him. I certainly didn't see part of the ending happening, some aspects of it was predictable, but again, there were some elements I didn't expect. Overall I enjoyed this book and will be looking out for more by this author.

In her best novel since the noirish Sunburn Laura Lippman sets up a wonderful story that is attention holding imaginative and suspenseful

When novelist Gerry Anderson comes to Baltimore for his dying mother he has no idea that he will wind up
bedridden from a fall down a staircase. Attended to by his assistant and a night nurse Gerry has dreams of writing another book that will top his most successful novel Dream Girl. Little does he dream he will receive a call from a character identifying herself as Aubrey , a character in Dream Girl. Real, hallucinations from the drugs he's on, a scam? Subsequent phone calls up the ante in the fear department and suspects are considered-his two attendants, former wives, an ex girlfriend.................

When a dead body appears in his bed the energy is moved up in intensity. And that was to whet your appetite. Now read the book..

The latest #russelreads is DREAM GIRL by @LauraMLippman -- a writer I've admired for years since her novel THE POWER OF THREE truly unnerved me.

This latest novel is the story of Gerry, an older novelist who finds himself bedbound with only a night nurse and his assistant to keep him company. But then his phone rings, and the woman on the other end claims to "Aubrey" a character from from a novel he wrote years ago. But Aubrey was just an invention... wasn't she?

With echoes of Misery, Rear Window, and references to writers and writing peppering the plot, Lippman's latest is a book about the lines of fiction and reality, as well as a thriller that relies on how much we trust our own memories of the past.

Gerry isn't a likeable character -- he's selfish, self centred, and deeply flawed -- but he is absolutely fascinating, and perhaps cuts a little closer to the bone than some authors may be comfortable with. The central mystery is equally compelling -- just when you think you know what's happening, something else arises that makes you doubt that certainty, until the climax feels both inevitable and surprising. The novel feels like a Baltimorean Hitchcock thriller, with Lippman tightly controlling the story to ensure that the reader is always just uncertain enough about the truth that they need to keep turning those pages.

In short I bloody loved this one. And a little midpoint cameo from another of Lippman's superb creations serves to seal the deal. If you've read Lippman before, you'll be smart enough to be getting your hands on this one already. If you're a new reader, then DREAM GIRL is going to make you rush out and devour every one of her precious novels.

I was lucky enough to get an early copy of this one via @NetGalley
(thanks to publishers @FaberBooks) but UK readers will be able to meet Gerry and his DREAM GIRL on 22 June.

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman was an exciting read that somehow managed to be darker than I expected, yet strangely refreshing. Particularly, I was quite drawn in by Lippman's writing style. Her ability to capture the cynical voice of aging, narcissistic author Gerry Anderson kept me entertained throughout—even despite his being bedridden for the majority of the novel.

One thing I did not like as much was the constant flashbacks to seemingly random points in Gerry's life. While I understand that these flashbacks tell us more about Gerry as a person, and help explain some of what is going on in present day, I often felt that they pulled me out of the story. This led me to want to skim past the flashbacks, and I found myself having to re-read portions containing context that I missed.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Dream Girl, and would definitely like to read more from the author in the future!

So this book was dull and confusing. I am convinced this was most read this year. The book opens with Gerry stuck in bed because he has had an accident. He is a writer and while he has not written many books, he has written a very popular one that has allowed him to live comfortably. The story was all over the place and it did more telling instead of showing.

A wild ride, a runaway chariot that spun around in every direction until ....

THUD

The suspense and satire along the way kept me riveted. Gerry's thoughts and actions were truly riotous.

Gerry is a famous novelist laid up in bed while he recovers from a fall. He is asleep more than he's awake. He is often not quite asleep and not quite awake. His nurse, Aileen (enter Drama!) looms over him serving pills with his dinner. She is a "cheerful Lady Macbeth, humming as she works." He wonders if he is having delusions or hallucinations.

A mystery caller, missing letters , a fictional tweeter. Gerry asks repeatedly, "Do I know you, who are you?"

This train was off the rails, someone truly does steal the show and I loved every minute of reading about it!

I read Laura Lippman's previous book, Sunburn, and LOVED it, so when I saw this on NetGalley I got very excited.
It did not disappoint.
If you like slow burn, psychological thrillers, and #MeToo revenge fantasies, then this book is for you. The narrator (Gerry) is soooo unlikable (no really, he is a horrible person) and that made it fun for me. I enjoyed the non-linear flashbacks and thought they added a lot to the story.
I will say that the book contains a lot of references to super old movies and books, none of which I had seen or read, so those parts were kind of lost on me.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book (I finished it in less than a day), and would recommend it to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for the ARC!

Gerry Andersen, an award winning novelist of the book Dream Girl, was in an accident that left him bed ridden. He starts to receive calls in the middle of the night from the Dream Girl herself; Aubrey. Aubrey is the main fictional character in Dream Girl that Gerry created. There is no record of these calls and he doesn’t know if he is dreaming it or not. Is he going crazy? Is dementia catching up to him?

This novel is a slow burn, psychological thriller, more than a horror story. I have not read any of Lippman’s other work so it was a treat going into this one blind. I was enthralled by the plot initially and was eager to get through the book to see how it unfolds. Unfortunately, I do think there were some details lacking in the plot. There are a bunch of flashbacks to Gerry’s past, which I thought would tie up in the end, but just ended up being random flashbacks. There were too many characters in this book that were a bit pointless in my opinion. The author’s writing was really nice to read, but there were a lot of references to classic films and books that just flew right over my head.

I felt like the ending was a bit rushed. I did enjoy the middle chunk of the book but was a bit disappointed by the ending.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is set to be published on June 22, 2021.

I think it was Stephen King who once called Laura Lippman the closest thing the United States has to Ruth Rendell. I couldn't have said it better. Like Rendell, Lippman's stand-alone novels are penetrating psychological portraits with an emphasis on current social themes (in this case, the #Metoo movement). I couldn't put this book down after I got into it. The plot focuses on an aging writer, Gerry, whose most famous novel was published decades earlier. After several failed marriages and many romantic failures, he's now recovering from an accident that leaves him homebound. While he's groggy with Ambien, he receives a phone call from the fictional character who made him famous--the "dream girl" of the title.

The book flips between scenes from Gerry's past and present, providing the reader with the full scope of his life. The story is part homage to Stephen King's MISERY, but just as importantly, it's a book about writers and the literary sene of the past few decades. I loved hearing Gerry's (Lippman's) thoughts on Jonathan Frazen, Philip Roth, and other literary giants of the last fifty years. Readers of her Tess Monaghan series will also be happy to see a cameo from their favorite Baltimore detective.

This might be my favorite Laura Lippman book yet. Highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest opinions.

After an accident leaves him bedridden, author Gerry Andersen begins receiving letters, phone calls and visits from a woman claiming to be Audrey - the central character from his most successful novel DREAM GIRL.  With a history of mental illness in his family, is Gerry beginning to lose his mind or is someone from his past out for blood?

I received an advanced copy from the publisher in exchange for a review.

While I’ve read a handful of novels by Laura Lippman, DREAM GIRL immediately jumped out to me after seeing a blurb from Megan Abbott where she said she devoured it in three days; labeling it “razor-sharp” and “enthralling”.

Let’s get this out of the way – I absolutely hated Gerry Andersen.  The guy is insufferable.  If he isn’t extolling the virtues of his own writing, he’s tearing down the work of others (dismissing the work of Chandler and Hammett) or lamenting the way the world has now turned into something he has a difficult time navigating given the ever-changing landscape of social justice.  It’s hard to find sympathy for Gerry at times; having to spend over three hundred pages with him can be grating.

But, that’s the point.  Lippman doesn’t want this guy to be likable.  Like she has Gerry say in the novel, “my characters are my characters… I think it’s somewhat naïve, as a reader, to talk about whether writers “like” their characters.  That’s not the point of what I’m doing.”

Gerry is a character that often tries to do well (despite his actual beliefs) and in doing so, believes himself to be without enemies.  However, as one character points out (and I’m paraphrasing here), if he thinks he got to where he is in life without fostering enemies, he’s out of his mind.  It’s the crux of the #metoo movement, which this book tackles, that powerful men often underestimate their power and how their actions can carry devastating effects for those who refuse to go along with them.

Despite its rather brief length, I found the story did take a while to get going.  Once it does though, it’s pretty hard to put it down.  And it has a hell of a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming even though I’m not sure how I missed it.  I knew a twist was coming, so maybe I was too busy trying to work out these insane scenarios in my head that in the end, were pretty laughable.

In the author’s note, Lippman said she had been inspired by Stephen King’s Misery as well as a desire to try her hand in the horror genre.  I will say that the Misery inspiration is hard to overlook for sure, as it almost feels more like an homage than anything.  While I’m not sure if this is one I would want to place in the horror section of a bookstore, it’s definitely a twisty psychological thriller.

DREAM GIRL is scheduled for release on July 01, 2021

This is clever and funny and satisfying. Unfortunately the main character is SO grotesque it's hard to read about him - that's a compliment to the author, but still, enter with care! If you've more than had your fill of mediocre white men alternating between patting themselves on the back for their genius, and wondering why their marriages don't work out, maybe avoid. Honestly, Laura Lippman must have felt nauseous the entire time she was writing this. I hope it was cathartic for her.

The way the mystery wraps up is a little silly, but I don't mind that at all. This is the first Lippman I've read, and having discovered that a minor character in it has a whole series of books to herself, I'll definitely be looking those up.

My thanks to Faber & Faber and NetGalley for the ARC.

"Dream Girl" is the story of once-famed writer Gerry Andersen who is confined to his bed after he takes a fall in his Baltimore apartment. What happens next is a fever dream of homage to some of the great literary works like Steven King's "Misery." Lippman is genius in her weaving of themes and storylines. While Gerry is in his drug-addled haze while recovering, the reader is going on a hazy journey through his past with him. Some parts did seem a little long, but it was a thrilling read that I couldn't put down with a delightfully twisted ending that readers will never see coming.

This is my first Laura Lippman novel, but will NOT be my last. As a warning, this story deals with sexual assault, so if that’s something that’s triggering for you, you may wish to avoid this novel.

The one qualm I have is that I expected the story to be a lot more fast-paced (based off the synopsis) than it actually was.

Other than that, Laura Lippman is a wonderful storyteller. Her writing style is easy to read. She wrote the story so well that I wasn’t able to figure out the ending (which I’m usually pretty good at doing), and I wasn’t expecting the twists.

This was a very original psychological thriller. I don’t think I’ve read anything like it before. I highly recommend it for fans of the genre.

Thank you to NetGalley, Faber and Faber Ltd., and Laura Lippman. This review and all opinions are my own.

Did I enjoy reading from Gerry’s perspective? No. Was this a good book? Yes.

That about sums up my feelings about this book. Gerry is a deplorable man who thinks quite well of himself and that his enemies are few. He is a semi-successful author who earns plenty of royalties from his hit book Dream Girl to live comfortably.
When Gerry suffers a serious injury from an accident, he ends up on bed rest in his luxurious apartment and in the care of his assistant and nurse. While under a haze of pain medication, Gerry starts receiving phone calls from someone claiming to be the inspiration for the main character in Dream Girl. Which is impossible because he completely invented that character. Constantly in a dreamlike state and on his cocktail of pain meds Gerry begins to lose touch with reality thus becoming an unreliable narrator.

I did not enjoy being in Gerry’s head, but I also could not stop reading. He is a misogynist who believes he has almost no possible enemies except for, maybe, his three ex-wives and one recent ex-girlfriend. He has no idea who could possibly be impersonating his fictionalized heroine.

This book jumps around from the present time to key moments throughout Gerry’s life. The sections on his past may seem random, but by the end they all fit together to reveal a nauseating truth. The comparison to King’s Misery is definitely apt in this novel.

CW: sexual assault.

This is my first Laura Lippman book, but it will certainly not be my last!

Thanks to Faber and Faber and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

I enjoyed this book and author. Plenty of twists to keep you wanting to read. I will be picking up more by author. Very much enjoyed this book! Thanks to publisher and NetGalley for chance to read this ARC.