An Anonymous Girl Features One of the Most Frustrating Villains in Thriller Genre History
I was not expecting this book to bother me so much.
And it was all due to the villain in this book. Man, she pissed me off in ways that no villain in a thriller novel has ever had before.
The story centers on a young woman named Jessica Farris, who decides to participate in a study with a psychologist named Dr. Lydia Shields. Jessica is a makeup artist who is in dire need of money, in order to support herself, and her family, who are now in a terrible financial situation.
Jessica harbors guilt for her sister, who endured a horrible accident at a young age, and now must be cared for by her parents, due to her head injury. Jessica blames herself for not looking after her that day, because her sister ended up falling out of a window.
And she also found herself in a terrifying situation with a man named Gene French in the past, a professor who took advantage of her and other students when she was trying to start her journey in the makeup industry.
Jessica decides to partake in the study with Dr. Shields…and this decision leads Jessica down a path of pure insanity.
Jessica is asked to participate in crazy studies that cause her to question Dr. Shields.
I honestly can’t believe that Jessica even agreed to these actions. While the majority of these actions were pretty crazy, the worst one by far was asking Jessica to hook up with a married man for a one-night stand.
And Jessica has no idea…that this man is married to Dr. Shields…because she is using both her husband and Jessica for her own personal study.
It’s so damn twisted and sick, and this really bothered me the first time I read this part in the book. Like what the hell is wrong with this lady???
And once Jessica finds out about the married man, Thomas, being the husband of Dr. Shields, she immediately gets pissed off. And so does Thomas. They then decide to work together to figure out what else she is plotting against them.
Jessica and Thomas realize too late that Dr. Shields is always one step ahead of them.
While Jessica and Thomas are secretly conducting their own investigation against her, Jessica finds out that there was another woman named April, who was involved with the couple a long time ago.
Apparently, April was pulled into the same thing as Jessica was, hooking up with Thomas, and taking part in a sort of therapy with Dr. Shields.
Jessica decides to continue working together with Thomas, and helps him gather information about April, to figure out what Dr. Shields is hiding. This decision leads to Jessica getting stalked by her, and she plots several attempts to ruin her life.
- Dr. Shields gets Jessica fired from her current makeup job.
- Dr. Shields tells her current boyfriend Noah to stay away from her, and he decides to listen to her.
- Dr. Shields uses her family as a tool to keep Jessica by her side, causing her to panic.
Do you see what I mean by a frustrating villain? She knew the power she had over Jessica, she knew about the shit went through in the past, yet she treated her like this, because she knew she could control her. She abused her own power to keep her in line…and I felt so bad for Jessica.
She was desperate for money, she was self-aware of the bad stuff she was getting herself into, but she wanted to help her family…and Dr. Shields knew this.
This is one of the few times where I really disliked a fictional character so badly…man…Dr. Shields was a total manipulative monster.
Jessica ends up finding out the dark truth about April later on.
Dr. Shields used her power as a psychiatrist to convince April to end her own life.
Jessica puts the pieces together, learning the real truth as to what happened to poor April. Once Dr. Shields learned that April was lying to her about getting together with her husband, Dr. Shields decides to give her pills, knowing that April was struggling with her mental state.
She knew that April would take these pills to end her life, due to the guilt of sleeping with Thomas.
Jessica then receives an invitation by Dr. Shields, asking her to come over to her place. And if she doesn’t, she will tell the authorities that Jessica stole a necklace from her, throwing her in jail.
Jessica knows that she has no choice, and she experiences a mental breakdown. She calls her parents, telling them what really happened that day with the accident of her sister.
Her parents tell her it wasn’t her fault, she was just a kid, who should never have been placed in that situation. This confession from both Jessica and her parents, is what helps Jessica gain the courage to go over to Dr. Shields’ place.
She prepares herself and goes over to confront this dangerous woman in her own home.
When Jessica arrives to the place of Dr. Shields, she is surprised to find Thomas also waiting there. Dr. Shields asked both of them to confess to having a one-night stand, and she even brings up to Thomas that she knew about the affair he had with April.
Once she is satisfied with her manipulation tactics, she tells Thomas that now they must turn Jessica in to the authorities.
Jessica learns in that moment that Dr. Shields loves her husband to death, and is in a sort of twisted love trap, realizing that she is willing to do anything for love. Jessica then reveals to Thomas that Dr. Shields was responsible for April’s death, freaking Thomas out.
We finally see Dr. Shields break, confessing to Thomas that she killed her, so that she could protect him. Thomas rejects Dr. Shields, and he leaves with Jessica, leaving a broken Dr. Shields behind in her own home.
Dr. Shields goes crazy, and she decides to end her own life, just like April did with the same pills.
Jessica gets her happy ending, much to my relief.
She is now living her dream in the makeup industry, the man who ruined her life was now apprehended for his crimes against Jessica and the other students, and she got closure with her family.
We unfortunately never see if she ever fixes her relationship with her boyfriend Noah, but she never stopped thinking about his good nature.
Then I thought it was hilarious how Jessica decided to take one last act of revenge against Thomas at the end of the novel. Since all of the riches were left to him after his crazy wife’s death, she blackmails him into giving her a lot of money to Jessica to help with her future.
I felt so proud of her character in that moment, because she deserved to have a good ending after what she went through.
I’m so glad the book didn’t end with Jessica being a psychopath. I honestly thought it would end with a crazy reveal that she actually pushed her sister from the window or something insane like that, but she turned out to be a victim that was pulled into the sick world of a couple who were struggling in their marriage.
Like wow, Dr. Shields was one of worst fictional monsters I have ever read in a book…I couldn’t stand her smugness whenever she used her manipulation tactics on Jessica…damn, she pissed me off.
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