WATCHING YOU by Lisa Jewell
Atria Books; 8/6/19
CBTB Rating: 5/5
The Verdict: a juicy, voyeuristic “popcorn read”
There are few things better than finding a book that you can completely lose yourself in—and that’s exactly what I found in Lisa Jewell’s utterly irresistible psychological suspense novel WATCHING YOU. I’m a relatively recent convert to Lisa Jewell’s work, which, on the one hand, I now find utterly shocking (how on earth did I wait so long to start reading her?!), but on the other hand means that I’ve still got plenty of older titles from this incredibly talented author to catch up on. That’s what I call a silver lining. WATCHING YOU originally released in the US in late 2018, but if you, like yours truly, missed it when it first released, consider this your friendly nudge to check this book out. WATCHING YOU is an irresistibly sinister and dramatic story of relationships, voyeurism, and the dark secrets that lurk in a posh English neighborhood. Following a robust cast of characters whose lives intersect with deadly consequence, WATCHING YOU is the rare psychological thriller that manages to be both smart and delightfully juicy at the same time. This book’s intricate plot demands the reader’s attention from page one, and its binge-worthy entertainment value guarantees that your attention will never waver, not until the story’s final shocking page has been turned. (And even then, you might want to grab your friends and have your own book club to discuss it.) WATCHING YOU swept me up in its deliciously dark suspense tale, and proved the perfect piece of “popcorn reading” for a weekend at home.
Plot Details:
You’re back home after four years working abroad, new husband in tow. You’re keen to find a place of your own. But for now, you’re crashing in your big brother’s spare room.
That’s when you meet the man next door. He’s the head teacher at the local school. Twice your age. Extraordinarily attractive.
You find yourself watching him. All the time. But you never dreamed that your innocent crush might become a deadly obsession.
Or that someone is watching you.
In Lisa Jewell’s latest “bone-chilling suspense” (People), no one is who they seem—and everyone has something to hide. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Ruth Ware, Watching You will keep you guessing as “Jewell teases out her twisty plot at just the right pace” (Booklist, starred review) until the startling revelations on the very last page.
There’s something special about a book that can manage to be intricate and binge-worthy all at once, and it’s this intoxicating combination that makes Lisa Jewell’s psychological thrillers such a hit for me. WATCHING YOU—like all of the Jewell books I’ve read so far—is a story with an intricate plot and a wide-ranging cast of characters. It’s a story that demands you sit up and pay attention, lest you miss one of the cleverly-laid clues the author has hidden throughout the book for readers to uncover, and it’s also a story that ensures you won’t want to do anything but devour it. Jewell somehow manages to craft stories that are complex enough to keep you on your toes, yet accessible enough to allow the reading experience to be all pleasure, no work. In WATCHING YOU, readers follow a cast of deeply suspicious and intriguing individuals whose paths cross in a high-end neighborhood in Bristol, England—and puzzling out the intricacies of their connections to one another will keep readers wholly entertained. In WATCHING YOU, everyone has something to hide, and nothing is as it seems.
Readers enter the world of WATCHING YOU alongside Joey, a young woman in her late-twenties who will quickly become one of our story’s most significant characters. Joey’s life isn’t quite the way she imagined it would be when she was younger. She is grieving the loss of her mother, estranged from her father, and struggling to find her purpose in life. When an opportunity to move into her brother’s beautiful home presents itself to her, Joey and her new husband jump at the chance—this could be the fresh start Joey needs. But then Joey meets Tom. Tom Fitzwilliam is a teacher at a local school, a mysterious and enigmatic man whose sterling-silver reputation hides a past that seems to be one big question mark. From the moment she first lays eyes on Tom, Joey is enamored; there’s just something about Tom that she can’t stop thinking about. As days and weeks pass, Joey’s infatuation with Tom grows—and the attraction is mutual. But Joey and Tom aren’t as under-the-radar as they might think. Tom’s son, Freddie, spends his free time perched in his bedroom window, observing the goings on of his neighbors and taking careful notes in his journals. Freddie begins to suspect that Joey might have feelings for his father that go beyond neighborly kindness… and that’s not the only thing Freddie notices. He observes teenage girls from a nearby school as they navigate the trials of adolescence; he observes a mysterious woman who wanders around the neighborhood, keeping a special eye on his father; he observes the way his own mother has seemed to shrink to a shadow of her former self. Secrets abound in this neighborhood, and readers witness them firsthand through Jewell’s multiple narrators, and through a birds-eye view provided by Freddie, the neighborhood’s resident chronicler. And in this neighborhood, secrets are deadly.
WATCHING YOU takes a slow-burn approach to ratcheting up the suspense and tension. From this story’s outset, readers know that a murder will take place before the story’s end—but the identities of victim and perpetrator are a mystery. Who in this picture-perfect neighborhood would commit a brutal murder? And better yet, why? With her trademark precision of plotting, Lisa Jewell spools a complex web of mystery and intrigue, leading readers down a twisty and shocking path that will, indeed, end with someone dead on the floor of their beautiful, expensive home. Jewell is in no hurry to reveal her story’s secrets to her readers, and the deliciously well-paced way in which this story develops will keep readers utterly engrossed, and desperate to know more. Jewell alternates her chapters between multiple points of view: readers will follow not only Joey, but also Freddie, a teenage girl named Jenna, a troubled woman with a mysterious fixation on Tom, and more. Interspersed throughout these alternating perspectives are “transcripts” of police interrogations of many of the story’s central characters, each “transcript” casting new suspicion on a different character central to this story—and each “transcript” similarly hinting at the horrific murder that is to come. Jewell’s masterful plotting and effortless toggling between points of view turn readers into voyeurs in this deliciously dark and sinister story of secrets and murder.
Perhaps the greatest indicator for me of just how much I loved WATCHING YOU came when I realized that I really couldn’t pick a favorite point of view or plot thread in this multifaceted suspense story. You know that feeling when you’re reading a book with multiple narrators and you find yourself skimming one narrator to get ahead to the next chapter narrated by the voice you prefer? That never happened to me with WATCHING YOU. Each perspective and plot thread here contributes equally to the reader’s understanding of the story’s bigger picture, and each plot thread is just as entertaining as the one that came before it. WATCHING YOU packs a one-two punch of intelligent plotting and killer entertainment value. This is an irresistible psychological suspense story perfect for a weekend binge-read.
Book Details:
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Atria Books; Reprint edition (August 6, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1501190083
ISBN-13: 978-1501190087
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