Amelia Brunskill’s THE WINDOW introduces readers to Jess, who is the complete opposite of her twin sister, Anna, who is outgoing and athletic, whereas Jess is a quiet introvert. It’s hard to believe that they were twins, and Jess always believed that they told each other everything, until she realizes that the case wasn’t the same for her sister.

After Anna supposedly falls to her death outside her bedroom window, Jess believes that it doesn’t add up. Where was she going? Who was she meeting, and why didn’t Anna tell her? As Jess begins to investigate her twin’s death, she finds that Anna kept a lot more from her than she originally thought.

I’m going to be honest, I hardly ever love young adult thrillers. They usually just focus on the romance (which is fine, but if I'm reading a thriller, I want more suspense and intrigue, and less “Does he love me? Does he really?”) so it's safe to say that I was hesitant going into THE WINDOW, but I absolutely ADORED it.

"I could tell that Brunskill really wanted to give her characters and story a worthy ending. In my opinion, she definitely succeeded. I would highly recommend THE WINDOW...."

First off, we have our main character, Jess. She’s the character I’ve always wanted in a young adult thriller. Right from the start, she is determined to get justice for her sister when she has a feeling that her death wasn’t all it turned out to be, and I really appreciated that half of the book wasn’t just about her grieving. Instead, her investigations were added to the mix to lead to a great combination of both emotion and mystery. She also just had really incredible character development, and by the end of the novel, she felt like almost a completely different person.

Another thing I loved was the female friendships! Since books in the young adult age range generally have female main characters, you’d think that there would be lots of healthy female friendships, right? Well...I wish that was the case, but it isn’t. Most young adult books are filled with girl hate and slut shaming, but I really loved how the friendships in THE WINDOW were handled. Jess’s best friend, Sarah, was supportive of Jess, and also kept her in place at the same time.

Probably one of my favorite things about the novel is how it handled grief with the parents. We generally don’t get to see parents at all in YA, but in THE WINDOW, we get to see the parents grieve their child’s death, while also trying to get through their everyday lives, and I liked how it wasn’t sugarcoated.

Going into YA thrillers, I’m always a bit hesitant about the romance aspect because of the reason I mentioned before, but in this case, I thought it was done wonderfully, it was a great balance of romance and mystery throughout the novel.

ALSO, THE ENDING! I obviously can’t say much about it without spoiling, but I’m someone who is generally able to guess the ending of thrillers maybe halfway through. This time, I thought I did, but the ending turned out to be completely different from what I thought, and I could tell that Brunskill really wanted to give her characters and story a worthy ending. In my opinion, she definitely succeeded.

I would highly recommend THE WINDOW to readers who enjoy thrillers and maybe also those who have felt a bit disappointed in the genre lately.