Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, I read over 100 pages and it failed to grab my attention. I have given Lippman many chances and I just do not enjoy her work.

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman
Publication Date: 01 July 2021
Blog: What's Rachel Reading

Dream Girl is a mystery/thriller that follows Gerry, a famous author who is bedridden because of an injury. Lippman sets the tone for "Dream Girl" in the first few pages by describing the atmosphere of his room as one where Gerry is almost powerless, stuck, and alone with his thoughts which soon turn dangerous.

Gerry's main antagonist in the beginning is himself and his own thoughts. Those thoughts soon turn to more concrete terrors that he faces and the real antagonists start to reveal themselves. With his injury, he's unable to control the actions that are taking place around him and he becomes an observer to his own demise.

Gerry is not the most likeable character. He's a self-absorbed, flat character who cannot understand why anyone would want to bring him down. He's not an awful person but, from what we know, there is not much to him. The secondary characters are the stars in this book and where the real information and mystery lie.
The touch on #metoo was wonderfully and necessarily done.

I enjoyed the twists, and there are a few in this story. I found it very easy to read and one that is not easy to put down. The flow of the book is interesting because of the twists. It starts strong in the beginning and has a strong ending but with having a completely differently conclusion than expected.
I do wish there was more of a dialogue, backstory, or information given on some of the secondary characters but I do not think the lack of information takes much away from the story.

Readers of any thriller/mystery novels will enjoy this book. "Dream Girl" has twists and turns that keep you guessing until the very end.

Thanks to Faber and Faber LTD and Netgalley for the advanced copy to review.

Laura Lippman is one of my go to authors. This book is a little outside her wheelhouse. It's good but not great. While the details ultimately come together, it seemed to ramble at times.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55425157-dream-girl?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=Z2PvaNIxrs&rank=3

I loved Dream Girl, i was expecting a bog standard psychological thriller but instead got a disarming, macabre almost horror story. claustrophobic with echos of Misery and Gaslight, Gerry is the ultimate unreliable narrator with a tenuous grasp on reality, hallucinating, on painkillers and physically kept in his bed. Exploring themes of the old vanguard in the literary world and the abuses that come with that power and fame, viewed with modern eyes it shows the great clash of the old and the new. This was an excellent and engrossing read, very cleverly plotted and with even though the characters were unlikeable they were very well drawn and very engaging.

Dream Girl is a psychological thriller. Gerry Anderson is an author and had preciously been a college professor. He is currently bedridden due to a fall down the stairs. He had a night nurse and a personal assistant that are the only people that he sees since he is confined to his bed. He is having trouble sleeping partially due to his injuries. In addition, he has been having troubling phone calls from someone that claims to be Aubrey who is a character in on of his books He is concerned with who the calls are from as Aubrey is someone that he made up for the book years ago.

He is one a number of medications that his night nurse gives to him. He is starting to have hallucinations and wonders if they are caused by the drugs. He is wondering what really happened and what is his imagination. The story gets interesting when he wakes up with a dead woman in his room. He has no memory of his murder. Things start getting twisted and secrets come out after this. It is an interesting book.

An interesting Misery-like haze between delusion and reality with a dose of psychopathic revenge - yep, that sums it up without any spoilers! An engaging read, with a few surprises along the way - doesn't move fast, but at a steady pace that keeps you turning the page.

"A letter, three phone calls, a tweet, a visit..."

Aging writer Gerry Andersen is convalescing at home, confined to a hospital bad in his lavish Baltimore apartment after a leg injury, with only his assistant and night nurse for company. Wavering in and out of a drug-induced slumber, he begins receiving late-night phone calls from a mysterious woman named Aubrey, who claims that he owes her something. The only problem is...Aubrey doesn't exist. She's the titular character of his novel Dream Girl, the book that skyrocketed him to literary fame.

I've read and enjoyed Laura Lippman's other recent novels, but in Dream Girl, she is writing on an entirely different level. In her Author's Note, she calls this her first horror novel -- and it definitely does have horror elements. It's incredibly Hitchcockian in its writing and execution, with several creepy cinematic moments that were just so much fun to read and picture in my head.

But I wouldn't say this is mainly a horror novel. Dream Girl is, at its heart, a writer writing about writing: the craft itself, the motivations and successes and failures, the critics, the myriad ways the literary scene has changed both organically, and under societal pressure. It's also a critique of the treatment of women in modern society, fitting solidly in with the #MeToo movement. In Gerry, Lippman takes us directly into the mind of a member of the "old guard": a white male writer, a bit of a chauvinist at best, who sees the industry changing around him -- who can't keep up but also doesn't really try. Being in Gerry's head is fascinating; he is a well-crafted character who is more than a little icky, while at the same time sympathetic and very funny.

I'm not going to discuss Lippman's inspirations here, because I think even the mere mention could be spoiler-y. Suffice it to say, she was clearly inspired by several books and films and I just loved how she turned those inspirations into this wholly original, brilliant, modern noir novel. She's a crazy good storyteller, and this is the best story of hers I've read so far.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing my copy in exchange for an honest review!

From reading other reviews, this seems to be a 'marmite' book. I'm afraid that I fell into the 'not really' camp. If the author was a man, I would deem this book misogynistic, as all of the women portrayed in the book are not only hugely unlikeable, but incredibly unbelievable and unrelatable. The only thing I really liked were the literary and cinema references.

I have to be honest and say that I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it either, but for me it does not match up to other books I have read by Laura Lippman. I didn't like a single character, every female character (bar one) was literally insane, and at times the plot just meandered.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Gerry Anderson who is a writer gets injured one day. He remains in bed most of the day on pain killers. He deams of events in his childhood which he would like to forget. This book dragged on at times.

BOOK REVIEW
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Title:Dream Girl
Author: Laura Lippman
Pub: July 2021

This was a page turning psychological thriller. It’s one of my favorite genres so I was pulled into the plot quickly. Gerry Anderson is a 63 year old renowned author for his bestselling novel, Dream Girl. Three times divorced, his love life seems complicated and we see various encounters he has with females throughout the novel.

Gerry is bed bound due to a recent injury at the start of this book and has an assistant and nurse caring for him. The story is told in a dual timeline bouncing back to when Gerry was younger. I liked the timeline and didn’t find it difficult to follow at all. He starts to experience unusual events while he’s sleeping or barely awake that involve eerie phone calls and visits from The Dream Girl from his novel Who is and what does she want?

A great thriller with a macabre plot that incorporated so many modern day issues like cancel culture and the me too movement etc. I really enjoyed this book. One of the things I did find somewhat distracting from the storyline was the continued reference to old movies and books. I think because Gerry was an author and this was part of his character it was included, but because I didn’t know so many of the references, I often just glazed over those parts.

Overall, I recommend Dream Girl and will read more Laura Lippman in the future.

"Dream Girl" is classified as a thriller, while Lippman calls it a horror novel. I found it humorous but in a macabre way with the scariest things happen off scene. Gerry Anderson, a 61 year old one hit wonder writer, is bedridden in is Baltimore penthouse with a bilateral quad tear. He has a night nurse, and an assistant that takes care of him during the day. Does it sound it a little like Stephen King’s "Misery"? Most certainly, but that is Lippman’s intent. People die, Anderson in an Ambien and OxyContin induced haze contemplates his past life.

Lippman fills her book with literary and movie references which adds to the humor. She even includes a scene with her character Tess Monaghan. My favorite literary quote that appears is “exit pursued by a bear.” (If the quote is unfamiliar then I suggest you look it up and read the work in which it is originally used.)

Dream Girl is well written, has a vivid sense of place, numerous damaged characters, and the perfect ending. I loved it!

I really enjoyed this book, it verges on horror with parallels to Stephen Kings Misery.
Gerry Andersen has had an accident which leaves him laid up in his swanky Baltimore apartment. Gerry is an author and has had a runaway success with his novel Dream Girl, although it’s been a while since he has written anything else. Two women look after Gerry while he is laid up, his personal assistant Victoria and a night nurse, Aileen. Gerry is having weird phone calls from someone claiming to be Aubrey, the girl from his book. But she is not a real person and her character wasn’t based on anyone. Are the phone calls real or is it a result of all the pain meds he is on. Then he has a shadowy nighttime visit from Aubrey.
What is the truth, are these hallucinations? But things are about to get a whole lot worse when Gerry wakes one morning to find a dead girl in his bed.
Told with flash backs to Gerry’s childhood, his recollections of his three marriages, his childhood and his book tours and also some amusing insights into a writers mind. It’s a great read.
#netgalley #dreamgirl

I accidentally read these 320 pages in one freaking day! This book was literally unputdownable. Readers, beware: this story jumps timelines and from reality to dream states without much warning. So, don't get confused--it's a big part of the story because the POV character, Gerry, is confused too.

Who is this nurse who keeps bringing him pills? What are these pills? Should he be taking them? And why is Audrey--a woman who stars in his bestselling novel and who is completely a fictitious character from his own imagination--calling him on the phone? How is that even possible?

The writing, the voice, and style of this book are unique and suck readers right into the story. Somehow Lippman made the confusion of this poor man's reality riveting and intriguing rather than frustrating. I will be looking for more books from this author for sure. Such a great summer read. Now, I better go catch up on everything I just missed while reading this fantastic novel.

Well, I think I am in the minority with my assessment of this book. I really enjoyed Lady in the Lake and was looking forward to another suspenseful story. The synopsis really intrigued me, but this book just did not measure up for me. This is Gerry Anderson's story. He is a 60 something author who is living off the royalties from his novel, Dream Girl. I found him a completely unlikeable character. He has been married three times and lived with other women. He feels he is being gaslighted by someone pretending to be the main character in Dream Girl. He worries he is getting Dementia like his mother. He is politically incorrect when talking about women, race, politics and is the epitome of white privilege. Yes, I did not like him one bit. He has fallen and is badly injured leaving him bedridden. The two women he sees regularly don't seem to really care much about him either. There are flashbacks into his life that I really didn't care about, and the mystery of the dead women seemed contrived to add some suspense to a rather boring story. I just couldn't get into this story at all and I ended up giving up on it after 62% finished. It might have gotten better, but it wasn't for me at all.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Dream Girl by Laura Lippman.
I have always followed Lippman's books - i really liked the Tess series and in this novel, Tess makes a cameo appearance. Love it.
This is a dark novel - the characters are tough to like, but this is a departure from Lippman's other books. I like that very much and i found i even though i didn't relate to the main characters, i could not put this book down.
This book is relevant and scary - recommend - 4 stars.

This book fell far short of my expectations. It felt like the majority of this book was just random ramblings by the main character, Gerry Anderson. The ramblings were political, race related, man/woman stereotypes, and a lot of white privilege. Then there are various flashbacks into Gerry's life which were just confusing and felt like "filler" in my opinion. Gerry is just an old white man that had an accident making him bedridden and he thinks he's being gaslighted. I didn't care.

Dream Girl follows Gerry Andersen who, after an unfortunate stumble, finds himself bedridden in his high rise apartment with his assistant and nurse for company. He starts to question his own sanity when he starts getting calls and letters from someone who should not exist.

The premise is fantastic, a remake of sorts of Misery but set in a Me Too world but I finished this book feeling almost nothing resulting in my rating of 2.5 stars.

There are no redeemable characters, the choppy back and forth with the timeline and the general slowness of it all made it difficult to get through. It was confusing how all the flashbacks fit together with the current story line and the ending is only mildly satisfying.

I think the plot is excellent but it somehow got lost in execution for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC

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

Take one part Stephen King's Misery, one part Gaslight and one part #me too and you end up with this gem. I’ve read a handful of Laura Lippman books and they have all been winners for me. It’s safe to say she’s an auto-request at this point and the fact that this was available as a Read Now on NetGalley means no one even had to suffer the consequences of me being rejected an early copy ; )

Lippman is calling this her first work of horror and you know what? I think I’ll allow it. Most would probably label it a thriller since there are no things that go bump in the night or alien spider reveals, but it definitely had plenty of WTF??? and creep factor going for it that it could loosely fit into that genre.

The tale here is about an aging author who takes a tumble leaving himself bedridden and housebound on traction with two broken legs. It’s also about the women in his life – both past and present. And that’s all you’re gonna get. Lippman is a great storyteller. Just read it.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!