1.5 Stars. Oh man, I really did not like this book. I was genuinely shocked come on to 欧宝娱乐 and see this novel had been mostly well received. It 1.5 Stars. Oh man, I really did not like this book. I was genuinely shocked come on to 欧宝娱乐 and see this novel had been mostly well received. It felt so objectively bland and boring to me, but I guess to each their own.
A misstep on my part may have been listening to the audio version but I strongly believe that is not the main reason why I didn鈥檛 like this book. I did listen to a sample of the audio a few months back and determined I didn鈥檛 like it. I have a thing with narrators who have really strong British accents 鈥� they usually don鈥檛 vibe with me. I decided to give it another go because I really wanted to read this book and surprisingly, it barely peeved me throughout the story. Despite my grievances about the content of the book, I was shockingly engaged for most of it, listening for hours at a time uninterrupted. Therefore, I don鈥檛 believe this is one of those cases where the narrator ruined the story for me. I just genuinely didn鈥檛 like this book. I do think the audiobook would have been improved by a bigger cast as we have multiple perspectives from people of different ages and genders (a woman in her late 50鈥檚 is never the right choice to voice a teenage boy in my opinion), but that鈥檚 not exclusive to this performance.
The plot of Watching You develops incredibly slowly. We start the book with the knowledge that someone has been found dead in their home and spent the rest of the novel attempting to piece together 鈥渨hodunnit.鈥� While many mysteries succeed in subtly place clues within a slow build up, this book was ridiculously dull. Half of the book was entirely uneventful with no action and no progress. It was very repetitive, going over the same events with different characters. I also did not like the switching back and forth between the past and police interviews. It felt very convoluted until the storylines began to match up. I expected there to be a lot of neighbors watching based on the title, but I didn鈥檛 realize I signed up to watch adults just freaking STARE at each other the whole time. Urban mysteries like this are typically my FAVORITE because I love the close-intimate nature of these stories in a bigger city, but it did not work here. I was under the impression that this book was a thriller, but the most thrilling part was when I could finally return the book to my library and start something new. A total, total bore.
I felt no attachment to any characters whatsoever. There are so many introduced all at once with very specific relationships to one another that it was hard to keep track of. I don鈥檛 think I should have to be reminding myself 鈥淥kay so X is their teacher and X is their son and X is who he鈥檚 watching and X is her sister鈥� so deep into the story. The only two I somewhat cared about were Jenna and Freddie (in the end). They absolutely did the most investigative work that propelled the story when most of the problems revolved around their parents/adult neighbors. They are the only reason the book gets half a star. As for the adults, Tom is a creep, Joey is dumb, Nicola is shady, and the rest of the adults get so little actual attention, I can鈥檛 remember much about them beyond how they connect to the aforementioned characters. I see many reviews mentioning development and I just want to ask . . . where?? Though there were some themes of mental health, I think they were explored really poorly. There鈥檚 also some Asperger鈥檚 rep that I felt could be viewed as alright, but also could be viewed as bad. Additionally, I picked out the murderer nearly as soon as they were introduced and once the main piece of evidence was uncovered, it was so glaringly obvious that the actual reveal had no impact. It was overall very disappointing.
The reason I initially picked up Watching You is because the cover was SO STRIKING! I could not stop thinking about it after eyeing it multiple times in bookstores. Since purchasing it, I鈥檝e had the cover facing out of my bookshelf because I love it so much, and probably will keep it that way despite my thoughts because it is just so vibrant. That being said, this was probably the most prominent example of 鈥淒on鈥檛 judge a book by it鈥檚 cover鈥� that I鈥檝e ever encountered as a reader . . . and not in a good way. I might pick up another book from Lisa Jewell as some of her other titles still intrigue me, but I will be going in with a cautious mind.
Content warning: (view spoiler)[ death/murder, stalking, cheating, talk of pedophilia/grooming, suicide, talk of psychosis (hide spoiler)]...more
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