“I look around at everybody laughing and joking together and struggle to understand my life has become a living hell that nobody present could even begin to imagine” – Grace Angel

Behind Closed Doors is a quick read that I read in two days. This book is about the marriage of Jack and Grace Angel. To the regular outside their live is peachy perfect but on the inside their marriage is anything but. I love the cover of this book. It gives me the thriller mystery vibe that I love. I love the flow of this book. Paris did a good job of dividing up past events and present. Collectively you get a well developed story line. This book is told from Grace’s point of view. I do want to say the summary gives you the impression that Grace has a dark side. That is just a way to make you think two can play a game. The book takes off right from the blurb at a party with his friends from work. We witness her anxiety of her making the wrong move. From there we discover that she is married to a sadist with psychotic behaviors. He hides this side of him until they get to their honeymoon where he confesses his plan immediately to her. He confesses his distain for her and he desires Mellie, her autistic younger sister who is away at a school till she is eighteen. From there we witness back and forth from past to present of what he does Grace when she tries to escape. She finally gets a break and ends saving herself and her sister. I will say though that Grace has a level of stupidity that kind of takes the cake. Jack is really that standard kind of Criminal Minds controlling sadist we witness on the show. The only thing that was missing was an epilogue that lets us know that she was able to contact Mellie. This book was praised for being the next in line after Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and I can tell you that it is like a crack in the door compared to the perfect thriller that was Gone Girl. I do recommend it thought. I give this four stars, this is mostly to the level of intelligence of Grace.