Louise gets more than she bargained for when she begins a flirtation with David, a man who later turns out to be her new boss – and he’s also married. When Louise meets his wife, Adele, the two become fast friends. But David and Adele’s marriage is not as perfect as it seems. Are either of them telling the truth? Or is there something else going on?

This book has been at the centre of a storm of publicity. With reviews declaring ‘everyone will be talking about this book’ and having inspired its own hashtag (#WTFthatending), it’s fair to say that my expectations were very high.

Things can go one of two ways when a book has received so much attention before it’s even been published. It’s either deserving of the attention and a fantastic read, or it is a complete disappointment. There is never any in-between. Unfortunately, Behind Her Eyes was the latter.

I couldn’t see why this book has been so hyped up nor why it has been given so much publicity. If I hadn’t heard about the supposedly fantastic twist that takes place at the end of the book I would have stopped reading before I’d reached page fifty.

The worst thing is that this could have been a good book. The plot wasn’t bad, and with a bit of work I think it could have been a really enjoyable and exciting psychological thriller. But the writing ruined it for me. Pinborough lacks any subtlety. At one point she refers to the grey clouds overhead and the cold weather as a metaphor for the characters’ emotions; obviously no one told her that the author is not supposed to point out when she’s using a metaphor. That defeats the whole purpose.

I also had no connection with any of the characters. All of them were unlikeable to the point of unbearable. They constantly complain – about themselves and others – and always tell the reader exactly how they are feeling without giving the reader space to interpret their actions for themselves. There is next to zero character development and everything they said and did seemed trite and unconvincing. As I didn’t care about the characters I didn’t care what happened to them, so the whole thing felt somewhat pointless.

Now, the twist. The twist has been at the heart of the publicity storm surrounding this book. No, I didn’t see it coming. Yes, I was shocked and surprised. But by the time the twist finally hit I was so bored that I didn’t really care. I didn’t think it was particularly clever and I think Pinborough wrote it with the intention of creating a stir rather than trying to make sure that it made sense within the story. There were hints leading up to it, but not enough to justify the pay off.

Pinborough has obviously seen the popularity of books like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train and, though it lacks the word ‘girl’, in the title, Behind Her Eyes has clearly been written with the hope of jumping on that bandwagon, while lacking the excitement and clever plotting of similar titles. The ending was so ridiculous it negated everything that had gone before and reinforced the feeling that I had wasted my time.

Aside from wondering what the twist is going to be there is very little mystery or suspense to this book. We find out within the first few chapters that Adele is not all she seems, and so up until the last few pages when the twist is revealed we follow a plot that is very linear and dull.

Despite the publicity surrounding this book nowhere was it mentioned that it is more than a psychological thriller, that it crosses genre boundaries to become something else entirely. If this had been carried out intelligently it could have worked well, but the story and characters in general were so flawed that the genre-crossing moments felt tacked on at the last minute. It also meant that the twist was not the kind I was expecting; instead of a frightening ‘this could actually happen’ twist, it provoked a ‘this is completely implausible and ridiculous’ reaction.

This is not a book I will be recommending. It had too many flaws for me to enjoy it and it did nothing to recommend Pinborough as a novelist.

Many thanks to HarperCollins for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.