Book Review: The Women In White bySarah Pekkanen

(Thankfully) Not For "Second Screen" Readers. This is one of those books with a lot of moving parts, a lot of understatement... and a lot of terror, just below the surface. If you're not actively engaged with this text, you're going to miss quite a bit of what is going on here, because while there is in fact quite a bit right there on the surface, perhaps the *most* disturbing aspects - and the other aspects that make it all work in rather excellent fashion - are the things just "off" the text. Blatantly clear and obvious to anyone actively engaged with the text, but also rather easily missed for those engaged in other activities and simply "reading" this book while doing half a dozen other things, just because "everyone" else is.

Which is both a shame (for those readers) and awesome (for the rest of us), because this is one of the better psychological dramas I've read this year, *specifically because* it doesn't feel the need to hammer you over the head with everything, including its most disturbing things. This is a story that takes something the US government has (finally) openly admitted to and spins a tale of friendship and survival around it rather adroitly.

Is this a usual "Sarah Pekkanan book"? In many ways yes, in many ways no. At least in my experience reading her last few books, yes, this is absolutely a dark and twisty women's psychological drama, and yes, even without knowing the author up front, Pekkanen would be one of my first few guesses. Maybe or maybe not *the* first, because there are several authors in this space, including some I've read as much or more than I've read Pekkanen, but absolutely up there in that list. And yet, this is also without much question her most understated book I've read - and again, for me, that works very much in her favor. This is a tale of the more quietly terrifying kind, the kind where you barely see the shark at all - even its fin - until deep in the text... except you *do* see the shark rather early here... or at least the water it is moving around, even if you don't yet know its full shape and significance. As opposed to a more in your face "we'll tear your soul apart!".

Overall, this is absolutely a strong tale and an incredibly interesting one... but it is also one that will demand your *full* attention and will demand that you look both to the text itself and to what is lurking just beneath it. If you're ready for that type of book, you're going to love this one. If you're not, it may not be the book for you. Only you can make that call, and it will be one that changes as your circumstances and mentalities do.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Women In White by Sarah Pekkanen was originally written on August 18, 2026.