Description:
Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you. As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father. One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…
Review: 5 Stars
Brilliant does not begin to cover it! Overall this an amazing read that you must have on your reading list.Lisa Jewell knows how to spin a web and knows exactly how to trap you in that web.
The writing style is very detailed and helps you “see” the places being described. It’s almost like you are a spectator in the plot and not a reader of a book. Ms. Jewell defines her characters so well that you can form an image of them in your head, they come alive in your mind. It’s like Tom, Joey, Jenna etc. are all your neighbors and you know exactly how they look and act!
What I loved about her writing is that it makes you forget where you are, you get so lost that when you stop reading and lift your head, it takes you a few blinks to realize that you aren’t in Bristol, you are a real person and not an imaginary character in this book- it is that engrossing. The multiple points of view make it interesting and engaging.
The plot, while slow to start, is interesting from the very beginning. They mystery develops well and leaves you wanting more. As you read along you will wonder about how many people are actually ‘watching’ the people of Melville? Is Jenna’s mom crazy or is there a cause for her paranoid behavior? Who is Tom Fitzwilliam really? Why is someone interested in hacking a child’s computer? The goings on in this little town are strange and the people are stranger, and yet they pull you in, like quicksand. By the end of part one you are just left with so much information yet with so many questions that all you want to do is read on. This is a book that is truly hard to put down.
As you read further along you begin to question your own assessment of each character and you can see the slow shift in your opinion of them as you’ve been reading, much like how your perception of an individual could gradually change with time. Soon you are unsure who the real victim is and who is the predator. You begin to question if you’ve been too hasty to judge or have you just been a victim of misinformation. It makes you think long and hard about where this plot is actually headed and what roles do each character truly play. To write a book this mysteriously and intriguing is not an easy job but Ms. Jewell does it with a flair. The climax is a little sad and leaves you on a low but it is the only way this story could have ended. All loose ends are tied up well and there is no more mystery left.
Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
#NetGalley, #WatchingYou
No comments:
Post a Comment