This was an excellent piece of speculative fiction, exploring the gap between our memories and the facts of an event. What matters more - the facts of what happened or how we remember something happening? What is reality- the facts of the event or our lived experience? The alternating perspectives from the two main characters - Jane and her psychiatrist - worked well with the suspense of wondering if one, or both, or neither, is an unreliable narrator. The story was suspenseful and introspective, it left me deep in thought and full of questions. I love books that blend genres. There are some sci-fi, uncanny undertones, but I think it leans more towards a slow burn psychological thriller/ mystery. It reminded me of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan and I think these books would make excellent companion reads.

Very strange book indeed!

Quick synopsis… Jane has reached out to Dr. Byrd, hoping to find a resolution to her episodes of fugue states. Dr. Byrd is mystified by what is causing the condition.

The book is told solely through Dr. Byrd’ s patient notes and Jane’s letters to her young son in the form of a journal. How this is portrayed to the reader is very unique and reads very clinically. I liked the idea of this format, but ultimately, I felt myself glazing over at the wording. It was distracting to me and very wordy. I had a hard time focusing and I kept putting down the book to do other things. I wanted to know how this all played out for Jane, but it just was too slow to become fully invested.

For 70% of it there wasn’t a ton going on. There were certain plot pieces that I wanted more information on specifically her relationship with Nico. The sci-fi details were a nice touch, but felt that they were just added too late. I was very excited once I saw where the author was going in regards to the sci-fi elements, but ultimately by that time I had checked out. I wanted more in that aspect as I found it really interesting. The ending also seemed anti- climatic. Overall the idea behind this had a lot of potential. It just didn’t resonate well for this reader.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

What a strange book. Not bad. Just…strange. I’m really not sure what. I read - it wasn’t mystery, it was….idk.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an Advanced Reader Copy of The Strange Case of Jane O in exchange for my honest review.

I selected this book solely because my maiden name is Jane O. but I had no idea what to expect.

I have to say I was up and down throughout the book. I liked the parts, including the format, where Jane wrote to her son, but Dr. Byrd's narratives got a little boring.

Overall, it was an ok book for me but not one I loved.

An interesting psychological mystery centered on motherhood, memory loss and mental health. Jane is a new Mom who suddenly has lapses in memory for sometimes days and begins to see Dr. Byrd as her psychiatrist who becomes completely engrossed in figuring out why. is it past trauma, the stress of new motherhood for a single woman or is it even deeper? To add another layer, Dr. Byrd becomes Jane's advocate when the detective on her missing person case becomes convinced that she is pretending to lose her memory and threatens to take Jane's son from her. At times it was a little clinical but then would quickly move back to the mystery as they searched for answers.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

Entertaining and mind-bendy! A woman named "Jane O" visits a psychiatrist after an odd experience. She is the opposite of an unreliable narrator typically found in thrillers - ever since she was a child, she has had perfect memory, down to the smallest details. Name a date and she can tell you what happened, what the weather was, etc. Ask her to describe your desk and she can do so with incredible detail - even if you moved a paperweight.

This story is best uncovered for yourself so won't give anything away here. It was a great read on a snowy afternoon.

I really wanted to read a book that would move me and THE STRANGE CASE OF JANE O did just that. This was such a layered story where you are sucked in to Jane’s story, the psychiatrists story, the truth, and what’s real and what’s not. I started to question her sanity, the psychiatrists sanity, and even my own.

Karen Thompson wrote a very strong speculative book that can be classified as a true psychological thriller and well as speculative contemporary fiction. It really was mind blowing.

I loved that it was wrote in a way that was easy to follow and I didn’t get lost. I scratched my head sometimes but it wasn’t from confusion.

The best way to sum up this book was it moved me. Then at the end it did something I wasn’t expecting. It made me smile.

And now I’m smiling again.

Read this one.

This is the kind of book it is better to not know what to expect and to jump in and enjoy the ride. If you've read Karen Thompson Walker's other books you know that her stories are in our world, but not. Each of her books speculates about the world with some shift in reality that creates a moral or existential inquiry. This book explores relationships and connection like her other stories, but in a way that caught me off guard.

My only issue with the book was that because of how the story is told, no spoilers, the characters felt clinical and distant in a way that I didn't expect.

I recommend this for anyone who liked her other books and/or who likes speculative fiction.

An eerie psychological suspense with a hint of sci-fi thrown in. A single mom, Jane, seeks psychological counseling for a confusing condition. Even though she has a unique memory trait, she disappears for periods at a time without any recollection of where she’s been. The story is slowly revealed from both Jane’s and the therapist’s points of view. An intriguing mystery with an unexpected, thought provoking ending.

› Inspired by The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Strange Case of Jane O. is about Jane, born with a "perfect memory". She can remember everything she's seen and heard for her entire life. She knows everything that happened on any particular day. She remembers all of the good and all of the bad. I imagine her biggest fear would be not being able to remember.

› It's the first year after her child, Caleb, was born and she's a single mom. She works as a librarian at the Fifth Avenue branch of the New York Public Library. One day she fails to pick Caleb up from daycare, she's reported missing and wakes up 25 hours later in a park with no memory of the past day. This woman with the perfect memory cannot remember. The police detective doesn't believe her story of amnesia. She starts seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Byrd. He suspects she may have experienced a fugue state. On top of that, she's also having hallucinations of a boy from her past who warns her of danger. The story is told from two points of view: Dr. Byrd's case notes and Jane's journal - written to her son Caleb to read when he's older.

› I have thoughts about how The Dreamers and The Strange Case of Jane O. could be connected - but that would be spoilers. We don't get to find out Jane O.'s real name. Could she be a character from The Dreamers? Walker has said that her second novel The Dreamers came from her first novel The Age of Miracles (which I haven't read, but is now on my TBR). Could all three be connected?

APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: character-driven, issue-oriented, unconventional
Pace: medium
Tone: emotional, heartwrenching, reflective, mysterious, haunting
Writing Style: conversational, compelling
Character: awkward, complex, likeable, multiple points of view
Disability representation: mental illness

Read Alikes:
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
Mirror Me by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
The Possibilities by Yael Goldstein
When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica
Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

› Final Thoughts
• The Strange Case of Jane O. is a mysterious, emotional, and thought-provoking book about identity and memory. I highly recommend this to fans of speculative fiction.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I enjoyed the structure of this book, going back and forth between the POV of a psychiatrist’s notes and then the POV of Jane. Not a thriller, but definitely made you think! Would recommend to friends.

This was an amazingly hypnotic read. I found myself unable to put it down. A very strange story but written so well. Easy to read and keeps the reader guessing with every page. The ending was satisfying as well, a rare thing lately.

Part clinical history, part personal journal, this fictional account of an inexplicable experience was beautifully voiced by two narrators, each distinct from the other but equally thoughtful and compelling to read. It's hard not to get spoilery, so I'll just say the plot was a page-turner but the feeling of it—the wistfulness and melancholy and sense that what we want or need is JUST on the other side of a very thin veil—will stay with me a long time.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the early read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC of The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker, in exchange for my honest review.

I am always on board for a story that explores the psychology of the human mind. When I read the premise of Jane O. I was immediately fascinated, albeit somewhat intimidated by the sci-fi/speculative fiction billing, and I needed to know more.

Jane, a single mom to one year old Caleb, seeks out the expertise of psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd, after she experiences unusual, unexplained psychological experiences. That’s all you really need to know about the premise, because I feel the reader will gain the most from this book by going in blind and forming their own opinions.

The mixed-media structure, which switched between Dr. Byrd’s thoughts and letters written by Jane O was so intriguing, making for a captivating read. As I turned the pages, I felt like I was peeling back the layers of an onion. This is one of those books where I have continued to think about it long past the final page.

If you are intimidated by science fiction, like I am, you can put those concerns aside with this book. Although there are sci-fi elements/themes, this story has strong literary fiction and psychological suspense components, making The Strange Case of Jane O. an accessible read.

Karen Thompson Walker gives us so much to ponder and discuss in this short book, making Jane O. a great book club selection or buddy read. Because I became attached to the characters, I would say my one complaint was that I wanted just a bit more. However, I do feel Thompson Walker gave this story an elegant ending.

If you enjoy a psychological study; themes of motherhood, grief, and loneliness; and the murky line between what’s real and what isn’t, give The Strange Case of Jane O. a try. You will not be disappointed.

4.25 Stars

Jane is a young, single mother. She works at the New York Public Library, lives in Brooklyn and mostly keeps to herself. One day she is found in the park, lying in the grass and has no memory of the 25 hours that have just passed. Frantic with worry about her one year old son, she quickly learns that his daycare attendant kept him overnight and he is fine. The police investigate to assure Jane there was no outside involvement and she quickly contacts the only psychiatrist she knows, one she saw very briefly at 17 years old. When Jane begins to meet with Dr. Byrd she also reveals a recent hallucination that she experienced, that, along with this lapse in memory is simply terrifying. Especially for someone like Jane, who has a life long condition known as hyperthymesia. She can recall an abnormally large number of life experiences in vivid detail. Narrated by both Dr. Byrd and Jane we learn first hand how this patient, kind psychiatrist desperately wants to help this woman who may or may not be telling the whole truth. Dr. Byrd diagnoses Jane with another rare disorder called dissociative fugue, a sort of reversible amnesia. Although the novel moves slowly, this incredibly original storyline is interesting and extremely well written. Highly recommend!

This book started off really good but quickly fell apart about halfway through. The main problem I had was the point of the view of the therapist. I think the novel would've worked better from Jane's point of view. Jane was the most interesting character, not the therapist. This book had really good parts, and really lackluster parts. It's very uneven. The writing is decent but nothing special. I had high expectations for this novel, but unfortunately, I found the overall premise/story to be underwhelming.

This was a good book. I’m unsure of whether I would put it under the thriller category or not. Not sure I’d recommend this to a wide group of people.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A woman, Jane, seeks the help of a psychiatrist after waking up in a park, unaware of how she got there or what happened during the hours between then and her last memory. Told in alternating voices (the psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd, and Jane), we learn that Jane has a perfect memory, and can recall every event from every day. Jane's memory will end up causing problems during the course of the story. Dr, Bryd's notes detail his interactions with Jane interspersed with information about his own personal life. Jane's sections are in the form of a diary, written to her infant son Caleb, to be read when he's an adult. Full of quiet tension and mystery, this book grabs on and won't let go.

I have enjoyed of all of Karen Thompson Walker's books and this was no exception. Her books are often a slow-burn, but always pack a punch at the end. Although I know this won't be for everyone, for me, this was a perfect story.

I devoured this book so quickly due to it's quick pacing. Loved the shorter chapters. It made the book hard to put down! I liked the psychological synapsis and how in depth it went.

I don't want too much, just read the book. It won't be for every reader, but it was for me!

. This was a phenomenally intriguing read and I loved it. Thank you NetGalley!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I read this at such a perfect sweet spot after just finally leaving a situation that felt all too similar with this book.

This book was so beautiful, but I don’t think you’ll ever know that until the very end. This book is also strange in that the plot isn’t very clear, and the layout isn’t very clear.

I think this book will either really work for people or not at all. I really enjoyed it and flew through it just because it felt like a puzzle I was trying to understand throughout.