This is another book that was marketed all wrong. I thought it was a thriller and it’s anything but. This is an examination of a woman who is struggling with her mental health after infertility and a broken marriage. She becomes obsessed with her celebrity neighbor, which evolves into some mild stalking behaviors. This is a very character driven book with not much point, so if you enjoy that kind of book, you may like this one.

I understand most people giving this such a low rating: it's certainly not a thriller, which it's marketed as; it's slow and clunky; there's hardly any dialogue or any real plot. If people are going into this thinking it'll be similar to books in the same vein as The Woman in the Window they will undoubtedly be upset.

However, even if you go into this book with some kind of warning and take it for what it is (which is a woman's slow descent into madness as she ruins her life and creates an obsession with a neighbor), it's...still not that strong. Again, there's hardly any real dialogue here or enough of a plot to really move the story along. The author tried to false scenarios to show how truly unhinged the main character is, but they fall flat.

It felt cheap that the author blamed a woman's fertility issues on her spiraling mental health to this extent. I also cannot recommend a book that condones animal cruelty purely for the sake of the plot.

This book was hard to read. Very depressing as a whole. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. While I enjoyed the idea of this book, I was disappointed. I did not like the ending at all. It was a good thing that this book was so short, or I may not have even bothered with reading it. I would not recommend this one.

Liked this book but am sad I didn’t love it more as the blurb really pulled me in. It’s a confusion between a thriller and a mystery, and it was really hard to warm to the characters.

If you mix Single White Female and Gone Girl, you get an idea of Laura Sims' Looker. A woman who lives alone becomes obsessed with an actress who lives next door. Her obsession will upends not only her life, but the lives of those around her in a search for a way to meet the woman she finds so fascinating.
Very Hitchcockian with an unexpected, shocking ending.

Thank you Scribner for providing a digital copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The reader witnesses a woman’s psychological crumble on each page and it’s a little uncomfortable to watch. The more you read the more she loses her grip with reality. I don’t get thrilled from this book. It’s not a mystery and not quite a thriller. It’s just a really messed up book with a messed up main character who should be in someone’s institution.

She loses her husband, her job, and the respect of her neighbors all within a short amount of time. I felt real pity for the character. It was a lot to take in.

This book was just not the book for me unfortunately. I really liked the premise, but I could not connect with the characters. The writing style and I did not jive. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity for review.

This book definitely sounds better in the blurb. This was honestly, a tough book to get through simply because how it is described is not how it reads and I neither liked nor cared about any of the characters so that didn't help. Just wasn't a good read for me.

Two thoughts ran through my head while reading
Looker:

Wow & WTF.

Told in the first person, Looker is the total unravelling of a smart, seemingly put together woman who has been through the ringer. We learn that before the book opens, our narrator has been through several years of infertility, culminating in infertility drugs. She has been told, by she and her husband’s infertility doctor, that it’s all her. His sperm is perfect.

And then, after she still doesn’t get pregnant, her husband (Nathan) leaves her, leaving her alone with her depression, rage, imperfections, and THE Cat.

Now, before I go too far, we don’t know exactly what happened before Nathan leaves her. We don’t know exactly why he ended up leaving, just that she was ‘crazy’ and he left. We readers start the book with just the bare facts.

But whatever, all this has lead our narrator to where she is, where she looks out her window and watches what seems like the perfect woman glide through life. The actress. She’s effortlessly beautiful, with a wonderful husband that loves her. She has a personal chef. A wonderful home.

Three perfect children.

All of the actress’s seeming perfections push our narrator closer and closer to the edge. The vaguely resemble each other — at least to our narrator (similar bodies, blonde, the same shade of lipstick). She cannot stand the woman, but wants to be her friend. To be her. To live her life. She knows she should stop watching, but she cannot look away. Cannot. Look. Away.

She even finds showings of the actress’s movies when she needs to get out of the house. A wee obsession this is not.

It’s obvious that our narrator’s struggle with fertility triggers some mental health issues, and the hormones pushed into her body don’t help at all. As she looks back, we see she also struggles with the disappointment her inability to conceive causes her husband. She’s spiralling downward, and she’s worried about his disappointment.

And then, when we get to the story, he’s gone. It’s her ‘craziness’ that seemed to have pushed him out. So she’s left with surging hormones, no baby, no husband, a career that’s faltering, and a famous actress next door that seems to have it all.

It’s a cauldron that needs little stirring to bubble over.

I’m not going to say more, because I’ll give the whole book away.

I don’t know that I liked this story — it made me super uncomfortable. But I also could not stop reading. It’s one of those stories I had to push through, and it’s worth it. It’s not a happy book, but it’s the kind of novel that’s worth reading. Looker puts infertility and hormones on display, parading their ability to push a woman past her breaking point. Sims also reveals how middle-class America shuns women who don’t live up to the perfect ideal of motherhood, while celebrating women, like the actress, who have both a career and motherhood (which means fertility).

(Of course that revered and lauded actress also has two nannies, a housekeeper, a personal chef, an assistant, and a successful, rich husband. Also probably a personal trainer, a stylist, and a makeup artist.)

As women, we’re pushed to have children, even when the infertility fight can push us into anxiety or depression. Then, when it’s not happen naturally and we’re already feeling anxious, depressed, and vulnerable, we’re given hormones to make us more able to get pregnant.

Because hormones only help those mental health issues, right?

So, you don’t get pregnant. And then you get more depressed or anxious or something else.

Or you do get pregnant, and you have those months of pregnancy that make you feel like your getting it done (and you may be euphoric or miserable in those months, but you’re doing your job), but then you have a baby and you may spiral into postpartum depression or worse, because, again, hormones and mental health go hand-and-hand.

I did not go through any of these things, luckily. No real fertility issues, no hormone shots, no postpartum (other than a few hormone surges that made me prone to cry for no reason). I did get the baby(s) to take home, and they’re only 14 months apart, and our youngest has Down syndrome (which seemed scarier in the hospital than in day-to-day life). That was scary enough without other issues, and anxiety didn’t kick in for a few years.

But Looker is a peek at the other side that kind. Of motherhood not happening easily, and then not happening at all.

And having to watch the seemingly perfect woman have it all right through your window.

I suggest everyone read Looker. Just like our narrator’s plight, it’s hard to look away, even when it makes you uncomfortable and sad. However, unlike our narrator’s obsession, Looker probably won’t push you over the edge.

“ “ The Looker” is mischaracterized as a thriller but does not fit easily into any category. This is a story
Of one woman’s desperate attempt to escape her own life and the slow unraveling as she loses first her hopes of a family through her inability to conceive and her obsession with a celebrity who lives on her block.
She is not a likable character and at first her actions are inexplicable and seem petty. On further reflection it seems that her need to gather the actress cast offs is a grasping at the things she cannot hold on to. She deals with the losses in her life by imagining herself as playing a role - always with the actress as her role model.
The book also makes a statement on the isolation of a troubled woman in the midst of people who observe and judge but never offer to help and society’s obsession with celebrity culture.
The ending is abrupt and unsatisfactory and leaves too many unanswered questions. I look forward to reading more from this author as I see potential for great story telling, #netgalley #looker #laurasims

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I wanted to read this one because the synopsis vaguely reminded me of another book I loved. I immediately got Girl On The Train vibes from this one, which I was loving, and quite frankly expecting. Even though I felt that way, I thought the whole plot was had it’s own unique take on the whole situation. I loved the cover of this one, it really made me want to pick it up.

It was absolute a character driven story, which worked well. I loved the details on each relationship in out main character’s life, love, friends (or lack there of), acquaintances, neighbors, etc. I found the main character’s obsessions intriguing and absolutely frightening at times. The mental illness aspect of the story was portrayed pretty well in my opinion.

I thought this one was a a pretty solid psychological thriller with many amazing qualities. I feel like it just fell a bit flat for me towards the end, and I almost didn’t care what was going to happen to the main character and side characters. I found it a quick enjoyable read that I would recommend to fans of Girl On The Train.

I have to say that I wasn’t crazy about this book at all. The story was great but it wasn’t executed in a way that held my attention. It’s one of those reads that I already don’t want to actually post a review for but for the sake of agreeing to, I’ll give it 3 stars.

I was not sure how I would feel about this one after I read the reviews from other people but I am SO glad that I was able to get a copy of this from Netgalley because I loved it! Being inside the mind of the unstable narrator was such a ride. This story is dark and filled with obsession, jealousy, and a slow downward spiral for the narrator. I think that Laura Sims did an excellent job on this and I will be looking forward to other work by her. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this!

Can a thriller be deemed as a relaxing read? Well this one sure can. I loved how the writer subtly draws you in to the book.

Contemporary society has embraced the looky-loo, but the protagonist in Looker takes things to a new level. She seems harmless enough though, especially because she's going through some thangs. The kind of things that can bring you to a dark place, but She rises above the fray so to speak, but perhaps only in her own mind. She's relatable and dare I say likable until she completely unravels or does she? Sims paints a picture that will have you question her reality. She's not bad, she's just written that way. Or maybe she's just crazy, but because the narrative doesn't dig that deep into her thought process it is hard to root for her, which is offputting as she's the only significant character. Sadly, the one noteness of Looker makes for unfullfilling read. It felt like something bigger was going to happen, but the story ends abruptly without satisfaction. Looker reminds me of a short story that leaves only unanswered questions in its wake, but instead of being thought-provoking it's just annoying.

A story similar to Girl on a Train or any of the other recent thrillers with a main character with stalker like tendencies. The narrator is a woman obsessed with a neighbor living across the street - and as her perception on reality falters so does the prose. Sims weaves in realistic streams of the narrators mixed up confusion adding to the draw of the story.

This book was unsettling, to say it best. There were times when I empathised with the main character, but then there were times when I said ‘What the heck’. It is slow building drama about a person’s obsession with an actress who lives near her house. What seems like a harmless obsession at first turns into a full blown scary stalkerish tendency, and the way it’s described in makes chills go down your spine cos you’d wonder, why is this happening. Is this a book I’ll read again and again? Maybe not. But it’s worth a one time read.

Such a interesting book! This is not a traditional fast paced thriller it takes its time and draws things out. It’s a slow burn thriller. Very subtle and intriguing. I enjoyed it very much and I thought it was just the right length!

Looker by Laura Sims.
I’m having a hard time rating this one! 3 stars for me means good, not great, may or may not recommend. 2 stars is it was fine, but unlikely that I’d recommend. This one was a solid 2 for me, it just wasn’t my book!

Looker is the story of a woman who’s unhinged. She’s recently divorced, dealing with fertility struggles, and oddly fascinated with her famous actress neighbor. All of that sets up a pretty solid foundation for the plot, but I just didn’t connect with this one.

The unreliable narrator can work, but fell flat for me on this one. It was hard to find the line between our narrator existing in her unhinged, fever dream state vs. living in her real life. I’ve heard lots of good reviews of this one, but it was just okay to me.

It clocks in short at just under 200 pages, so it’s a fast read!