Book Review: Watch Me

Watch Me, by Jody Gehrman

Publication:  St. Martin’s Griffin; January 23, 2018

About the book: 

For fans of dark and twisty psychological thrillers, Watch Me is a riveting novel of suspense about how far obsession can go.

Kate Youngblood is disappearing. Muddling through her late 30s as a creative writing professor at Blackwood college, she’s dangerously close to never being noticed again. The follow-up novel to her successful debut tanked. Her husband left her for a woman ten years younger. She’s always been bright, beautiful, independent and a little wild, but now her glow is starting to vanish. She’s heading into an age where her eyes are less blue, her charm worn out, and soon no one will ever truly look at her, want to know her, again.

Except one.

Sam Grist is Kate’s most promising student. An unflinching writer with razor-sharp clarity who gravitates towards dark themes and twisted plots, his raw talent is something Kate wants to nurture into literary success. But he’s not there solely to be the best writer. He’s been watching her. Wanting her. Working his way to her for years.

As Sam slowly makes his way into Kate’s life, they enter a deadly web of dangerous lies and forbidden desire. But how far will his fixation go? And how far will she allow it?

A gripping novel exploring intense obsession and illicit attraction, Jody Gehrman introduces a world where what you desire most may be the most dangerous thing of all.

My Review:

Happy release day to Jody Gehrman and her new novel, Watch Me. Wow, this one is deliciously addictive and creepy in a way that I couldn’t put it down, yet also wanted to cover my eyes as if I were watching a horror film. Kate Youngblood is a thirty-eight-year-old professor and writer. Her first book was a huge success but the ones after that were lukewarm. Her husband left her for a much younger woman and her best friend is having a baby. Things are changing in Kate’s life resulting in her feeling less important, less interesting, and less desirable than she once was. Sam Grist is a twenty-two-year-old, talented, and hauntingly sexy student in Kate’s fiction-writing workshop. Kate quickly recognizes his writing talent, as well as, the effect he has on her when he looks at her or is close to her. She tries to fight the excitement from his attention and praise but soon finds herself getting drawn into Sam’s very disturbing life. 

“Nobody’s drunk me in like that for so long… I can’t remember feeling so fascinating, ever… After feeling increasingly invisible every day, I found his need to take me in, to touch me, intoxicating. He answered questions I didn’t even know I’d been asking: Am I still here? Do I still matter?”

I’ll start with Kate. I quickly became emersed in her character and her inner monologue about getting older, having children, men, and so on. Although Kate was obviously a strong and intelligent woman, the changes that had taken place in her life over the years had sparked issues with her own self-worth where she considered herself invisible, unattractive, etc. She immediately recognizes and acknowledges all of the millions of warning bells going off in her head as she realizes Sam’s attraction to her, however, she struggles with ignoring those warnings. The lesson here – sometimes those first gut instincts are right on!!!

“You are even better than I imagined. I move the binoculars up to your face. I’m not a pervert, a Peeping Tom. I am Romeo, gazing up at Juliet by moonlight… To study you. Understand you. Observe you in your natural habitat.”

Sam is creepy, complex, dark, and mysterious from the beginning, yet it was impossible not to be drawn to his character at times. Although I was questioning his mental stability quite often throughout the novel, Sam had a sexy arrogance about him that seemed somewhat delicious at times. The author crafted the perfect creepy man for this novel and succeeded in not only planting doubts in Kate’s mind, but also in my own. I caught myself a few times thinking, “maybe he’s an o.k. guy, just comes on a little strong?” That push and pull between the two main characters are what made this an absolute page-turner. 

Other characters such as Zoe, Raul, and Jessica were just o.k. to me. They did add to the overall story but none had any overwhelming likable or unlikeable qualities. What they did do, at least for me, was place doubt in my mind about whether or not Sam was really a bad guy. Perhaps my thought processes are as twisted as Kate’s, but as I stated before, I had some lapses in my sanity a few times while reading this one. Any lovers of creepy thrillers need to add Watch Me to the top of your TBR. This one isn’t going to leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling, but absolutely keeps your mind racing over the events and revelations within the story!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

 

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