Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC I was provided in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I’m not going to lie, I love Lisa Jewell. I mean, I’ve only read two of her books before Watching You—Then She was Gone and The Girls in the Garden—so you couldn’t exactly call me a fan girl, but I’ve liked each of her books that I’ve read better than the last one, and this was no exception.
Watching You is definitely what you’d call a slow boil. It was hard for me to get into and I wasn’t hooked until about 50% into the novel. The thing is, though, when I was hooked, I was HOOKED. It’s like all of a sudden, my brain had hooks in it and I couldn’t get away from it. I stayed up late reading and couldn’t bring myself to put it down.
One of the things I like best about her books is the way she uses the multi-perspective trope that’s so common in thrillers. If, by some chance, you’ve read any of my other reviews, you know I’m getting sick of this in thrillers because at this point, the multi perspectives thing is just overdone. That and the unreliable, messed up protagonist are my pet peeves because they’ve been run into the ground. Jewell’s different characters were much more complicated than that: yeah, they all had their own quirks and neuroses, but if you were in their head, they were complicated. She can really create a character that feels real, which is part of what makes her such an engaging writer. It’s hard not to get invested in the story you’re reading because you really believe the voice you’re hearing. It feels very real.
The other thing I really liked about this book was the way everything came together so seamlessly in the end. It was a surprising ending—in fact, what I had spent the whole book trying to solve didn’t even happen—but it wasn’t so shocking that it felt cheap or like a cop out. It felt like I should’ve known all along, but for once, I didn’t. I really enjoyed this book. 4.5/5, definitely a must read for any thriller fan.
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