Watch Me by Jody Gehrman

Publication Date: January 23rd 2018

Read Date: January 14th 2018

Publishers: St. Martin’s Press

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Pages: 320

Stars: 4/5

Kate Youngblood is author, creative writing professor at Blackwood College. Her personal life is disaster because of divorce after decade long marriage. Her career as writer is at a jeopardy and professor is not so shining. She is 38, independent, beautiful and doesn’t want family anymore. Lonely life and sudden intense shower of attention strays her from conscience that might cost her job. Where this will take her?

This student is 22 old Sam Grist, a brilliant promising writer. His stories are dark and twisted, but has raw talent that Kate has never found in her any other students and so want to shape it. But… There is more to him than he shows in public, more to his passion for being writer, it’s not the only reason he’s student at Blackwood.

He is always watching her- every little detail at every place Kate goes. He’s slowly entering her life and is about to cross a forbidden line that Kate has drown for her students. Will she allow him to enter her life and risk to lose a career or will try to stop him?

Watch Me is dark interesting psychological thriller that revolves around two main characters of the book- Kate and Sam. You will see these words in all reviews for sure- dark, creepy, scary, chilling, and so damn engaging. This book is about obsessive love, lust and attraction, illicit relation of professor and student, privacy invasion, and a dark psychopathic crazy intentions.

Kate was everything that defy social conventions. Ambitious, independent, never wanted children, functioning alcoholic, and sex was very important in her life and marriage. She was wrack after her divorce; anxious as she couldn’t get any inspiration for her new novel; her best friend, Zoe, was pregnant so there was visible transformation in Zoe from best buddy to be pious mother and committed wife that meant less buddy time. All this made Kate lonely, there was no one around to comfort her anxiousness and share a drink. I think that’s why, maybe, someone’s constantly following eyes and adorable caring attention attracted her to the obvious risk and danger. She was a good character to whom lot of bad thing happening lately. Though I couldn’t deny her stupidity, she was so desperate to see a light in the darkness till the end that I couldn’t understand.

Sam– What I say about him. He is downright disgusting and creepy right from the first chapter. I literally hate him. He, his actions, his thoughts, his reasoning all was so freaking scary and dangerous that it made me constantly worrying for Kate. He sickened me to the core whenever he said ‘I love you for this and love you for that’. I tell you, you won’t forget this character for very long time.

Zoe was one uplifting character in whole book, I liked her. People’s priority change when they have responsibility of someone so delicate and that doesn’t define her under ‘not best friend anymore’ tag that Kate was tagging her in her thoughts. This was one thing I didn’t like about Kate but by the end of the book I’m glad she improved a little in this.

Brilliant characterization! No character in the book was perfect. Even the small peculiar details of secondary characters were interesting.

This book was a perfect example of ‘obsessive love of Psychopath’ or ‘a psychopath in love’.

First thing I noticed in the beginning of the book- Sam is repulsive scary stalker whose thought are only about ‘things I want to do to you’. Sick! Second – Kate is no better, she sounded so desperate but obviously not in repulsive way. Definitely normal human with flaws. Third and remarkable- dark witty thoughts of characters in so much tensed novel. To be specific, Kate telling about her love for babies and parties. 😉

The story was narrated alternatively in ‘Watching You’ and ‘Watching Me’ i.e. by Sam and Kate. Sam narration told about his observations while watching Kate, sometimes making weird haiku, and imagining all the things he dreamed with her (mostly lustful thoughts). It also told about his past, his mother, his intentions and how far he has gone in his obsession, plus we also get glimpse of Kate’s life through his narration- her novels, where she lived, what she likes and dislikes. It was very unique and interesting style. I liked that classroom discussions on writing.

Sam’s insanity behind the mask of sanity, the way he made himself easily blended with normalcy, his foul real language yet great literary writing- everything he was or showed outside was very contrary to his real inside. This was one twisted psychopath that made everything creepy without excessive violence and blood. Kudos to author for creating such a mind blowing, chilling character. He felt so realistic that scared me even more.

“It’s not healthy to show people the basement of your soul. Keep them upstairs, in the kitchen or the bedroom. Never give them a tour of your cellar, where the air is fetid and dank. Don’t point out the cockroaches skittering across the dripping, slimy walls. Don’t show them where you have hidden the bodies. Nobody can forgive you for that.“

Kate’s narration said about her life and her knowledge as author- the way she saw Sam’s writing, her close observation on Sam’s behavior- I was impressed how she could see his practiced expression, her feelings for him and the way she felt around him. I liked the Kate’s independent thoughts, her style of living-careless and free, I could imagine her lively cheering life before her divorce.

I admired her for not following conventional rule of society and that showed the judgmental face of society in the book- how people think about lonely woman who likes to drink and have fun, even though she is doing a decent job; what people think even though she had a decent sober date or meeting, even police which was very shocking.

There was constant tense and curious feeling while I was reading the book. I couldn’t guess Sam’s next step until the hint was given. It was very unpredictable to guess what Sam will do next, how Kate will discover Sam’s true intentions, how she will react when she discovered the truth, and what she will do at the end. It was very engaging.

Brilliant climax and very unpredictable end. It was remarkable and I just loved it. This was my first book by Jody Gehrman and so liked it that I would love to read more books by this author.

Climax to end and this in between portion was little long. I thought after climax the end won’t be too far, but it was many pages away than I expected. And Sam was so out of character at the end, thoughtless and reckless, not his usual way. Kate, as I said that feeling she had for Sam, it was very complicated, I couldn’t understand her reasons, maybe it’s just me other reader may find them reasonable and okay. She was good till climax and all those revelations, but after that I couldn’t understand her stupidity. I just couldn’t fathom how anyone can find Sam attractive or miss his scary eyes even after knowing the truth.

Overall, bone-chilling creepy psychological thriller with brilliant and creative characters. so interesting that i couldn’t out it down but I assure its not for faint-hearted people.

Author: Jody Gehrman

To know more about author click⇒⇒ here.

*** Note: I received e-ARC of this book via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to publishers, author, and NetGalley. ***

What do you think about this book and my review? Have read this book already or any book by this author before? Have you read something similar to this book?

Share your thoughts in comment-box below.