Lock Every Door builds up slowly at first. It makes Jules’s actions more understandable, and, from a standpoint of society and politics, I think it’s valuable for readers to see this perspective illustrated. It’s not a theme I expected to find in a psychological thriller, but I’m so glad Riley Sager included this point. Especially in the early chapters of the books, I love her commentary on being poor and what poverty looks like I love how she articulates how unfair it is and how it effects people’s lives… and charges interest. I, too, come from a low-income background and carry the weight of crushing student loan debt.

To be frank, I really identified with Jules. This well-paying job seemed too good to be true, and we all know how that saying ends. (No children and babysitting this time, unlike in the other two books I read right before this.) Jules is recently jobless, homeless, and single, and with her mountain of debt and no family to turn to, she was desperate. In the case of Lock Every Door, our lead character, Jules Larsen starts off they story by getting a job as an apartment sitter in New York City. Like those former two, I loved reading Lock Every Door, and even though they all had loosely similar setups, I love how they all went in completely different directions. I decided to read it last in my trio of thrillers related to living in another’s home as part of your job duties, following The Au Pair by Emma Rous and Ruth Ware’s The Turn of the Key. In July, one of my Book of the Month selections was Lock Every Door by Riley Sager.

Lock every door book