⭐⭐⭐⭐
Watching You by Lisa Jewell is a story about an exclusive neighborhood where a new neighbor develops a maddening crush on a charming and affable headmaster. When someone ends up dead in their kitchen, everyone in this neighborhood is a suspect.
One of the things that I love about this book is that it takes what you assume and uses it against you. As readers we are spectators, just like Freddie in his room, we see from the outside and assume we know what lies deep within but we don’t know anything and Jewell taught me that using this book.
It takes place in the upper crust countryside. There’s a whole cast of characters but we are only given four limited third person perspectives. The trouble with reviewing thrillers is that every plot development past page one feels like a spoiler because usually the blurbs are purposefully vague.
Now for the writing, which I can talk about. Jewell tried to do different writing styles for the different perspectives but it all ended sounding the same. Except for one chapter of Freddie’s sounding purposefully choppy. Because he’s on the spectrum. I especially had a problem with his depiction because he was watching people and the book made him seem really creepy and something he does at the end is kind of messed up.
As for Tom Fitzwilliam, I’m sorry but the attraction Joey feels for him is most likely just Daddy issues, but the book doesn’t just come out and say it. She has a really hot husband but she goes after an old man and it seems like she is using her mother’s death to mess up her life and make excuses for not growing up. Which makes me supremely annoyed with her, especially when she is going on and on about his body and it’s “softness” UGH. And it had no direct correlation to the plot. Joey is a foil and I have to hear about her weird crush for nothing. Not to mention the red suede shoes in every other chapter.
Another thing that stopped this being a five star book for me was the fact that there were a lot of interlocking pieces that seemed to go together but didn’t have any bearing on the story at all. Classic misdirection.
Again the depiction of women in this book was pretty bad, I didn’t see any redeeming qualities in most of them. The letter at the end of the book didn’t make a lot of sense and I felt like it was I saw the twist coming about half way through part two, but I think that it was handled pretty well. One of my gripes with thrillers is if I can guess the ending and I didn’t fully guess it so that’s enough to warrant 4 stars.
Reading Reckless : Rants and Raves 