The Elizas

A couple of years ago, I got the four-book Pretty Little Liars collections as a library ebook. I started reading it on the G train from the studio, and I read it all freaking night. I could not stop until I knew all the secrets. (The show is fine, but it didn’t suck me in the way the books did.)

The Elizas, Sara Shepard’s upcoming book, was also a one-day read for me. The story begins with novelist Eliza Fontaine waking up in the hospital after almost drowning in a hotel pool. She’s sure she was pushed, but doesn’t know who tried to kill her, or why.   Eliza, though, has a history of attempting suicide by drowning, and some memory issues after her brain surgery, and maybe a little problem with alcohol, so she has trouble convincing anyone.

There are a lot of really ominous moments, where it seems like something’s going on just out of Eliza’s vision. For example, there’s a police detective (or is he???) who shrugs off her suspicions of attempted murder by telling her she seems like a nice girl, based on the five minutes he’s seen her, so she probably doesn’t have any enemies. Gabby, Eliza’s strangely passive step-sister, is either way too nice or just biding her time to take revenge on the sister who harassed her for years. And the guy who fished Eliza out of the pool is one odd duck, for way too many reasons.

Eliza’s story is told in alternating chapters with chapters from her novel, The Dots. At first, they two stories seem to be thematically similar, but then there are some uncanny similarities between Eliza’s life and the book that she believes is fiction.  The novel shifts between two mysteries and the realization that the solution to both mysteries is connected. 

I’ve got a spoiler-riffic fan theory on exactly what the last scene meant, but save it until you’ve read the novel. Then come back and tell me if you agree.

The Elizas will be released by Atria Books on April 17, 2018