Publisher's Synopsis
Sarah and Ginny have been best friends since school. They both had their share of adolescent problems but now things are working out for Sarah. She's met Tom. He's handsome, a journalist and totally devoted to her. Her TV reporting career is taking off. She and Tom have moved into a stunning inner-city apartment.
But Ginny has not been so lucky. She wanted Tom, but she didn't get him. She wants the ease and grace with which Sarah lives her life. She wants what Sarah has. She wants it all.
Ginny moves into an apartment overlooking Sarah and Tom's. She starts watching them. Then she does something more than just watch.
And so the torment begins
A riveting tale of obsession and danger that proves we never really know who our friends are.
Title: Apartment 255
Author: Bunty Avieson
Pages: 292
Published Date: 2001
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Series Details: Stand Alone
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My Review
Sarah and Ginny have been best friends since the age of 11 when they met at school. But now, Sarah has Tom and the quiet, more reserved Ginny believes that Sarah stole him from her. She wants him back. Unknown to Sarah and Tom, Ginny has moved in to the apartment that overlooks their own in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Elizabeth Bay. Thus begins an obsessed descent into a dark secretive and voyeuristic vigil by Ginny. But the watching isn't enough, she has much grander plans to take her obsession further by setting up an elaborate listening device so she can hear her beloved Tom talking to her secret enemy, Sarah.
Further still, Ginny devises a plan that will slowly change Sarah from a sweet, loving woman into an enraged animal and sets it in motion. Her aim is not only to win over Tom, but to destroy Sarah in the process and it's amazing the effects that constant doses of horse steroids can have on an unsuspecting person.
Meanwhile, Sarah is living what anyone would consider to be an ideal life, madly in love with Tom, working in a job she adores and content with everything around her. She is a bubbly, mild-mannered young woman who exudes confidence. But this is all beginning to change. Gradually her temper begins to grow shorter, her body begins to change and her need to exercise starts to consume her. Could Ginny's grand plan actually succeed?
Bunty Avieson has written a chilling psychological thriller that hits home because of the utter simplicity of the plan undertaken by Ginny and the devastating effect that it has on her victim. She lays down the story in a straightforward style that is simply compelling, much the same way that you can't look away from a car wreck. At times there are some bright points that give us a glimmer of hope that, hey, everything might be all right after all, but these hopes are quickly dashed away as Ginny seems to have every possibility covered. Avieson does a wonderful job at controlling the mood of the book, knowing when to produce these glimmers of hope and then, how completely they should be snuffed out.
This is by no means a fast-paced book. Instead we are made to wallow in the growing distress of the victims, who are unable to work out why their world is crumbling around them. I think if the story was allowed to progress too quickly, the effect would have been diminished and the change in Sarah and Tom would not have seemed so profound.
Even by the last couple of chapters I was unsure what the final outcome of the story was going to be. Would Ginny succeed? Would Sarah be driven completely insane by the drastic changes taking place in her body? Was Tom going to be taken in by the devious Ginny? I find there's nothing better to be held in complete suspense right up to the final couple of pages and Bunty Avieson was able to achieve that in Apartment 255.