Books I've read: Someone is Always Watching

 

This was a weird one.  I really wanted to like it more, but I found it difficult to relate to any of the characters and none of them really felt 100% real to me.  Which may have been the point, on further reflection...

The book is set in a small community in which almost all the parents work for a single company.  Their kids all go to the same school and largely hang out with one another as a big friend group.  Blythe is a good girl, always doing what she should.  Unless Tucker is involved.  He seems to be able to encourage bad behaviour in her, and has been able to since they were small children.  Now they're banned form seeing one another and it's hard because Blythe thinks she might actually be in love with Tucker.

When one of their other friends, Gabrielle, appears to have a breakdown at school, things start getting weird.  Especially when the principal shows up dead and Gabrielle is covered in (his???) blood.  And then there are the weird dreams and memories of things that never happened that keep flashing through Blythe's head.  Is she going as crazy as they say Gabrielle is?  Or is something much more sinister going on?

It probably comes as no surprise that yes, it is something more sinister.  I won't say what though, because that would ruin the book for you....  

I found this a fast-paced read.  There was enough intrigue to keep things interesting and the pages turning.  I enjoyed the focus on memory and the unreliability of it.  I just wished the characters were a little more fleshed out.  They all seemed very privileged, living in this tight community where everyone's parents had a good, stable job and any major problem could be taken care of by someone at the company (which became a little sinister as things began spiralling for Blythe and her friends).

It's not the best book I've ever read, but it was entertaining enough and kept me turning the pages right until the end.

So I'd recommend it if you like thrillers and don't care too much if the characters have layers and depth to them.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Blythe and her friends—Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya—have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives.

The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened.

Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?