Synopsis:
An abandoned prison. A deadly game. How far would you go for a dare?
Nia would do anything to win the approval of her boyfriend Scott and his friends, especially mean girl Olivia. When Olivia dares Nia to explore an abandoned prison, she sees it as the perfect opportunity to prove herself. Facing dark tunnels, distant noises and creepy mementoes left behind by incarcerated criminals will surely all be worth it.
But it isn’t long before Nia and her little sister, Kayla, find themselves trapped inside. And then Kayla vanishes.
Suddenly, this feels like more than a game gone wrong. Someone is hellbent on making Nia and Kayla the prison’s last inmates …
Review:
Someone Is Watching You is a great debut novel. Young adult thrillers are quickly becoming my favourite genre and Tess James-Mackey is now one of my favourite authors in the genre. This book wasn’t perfect by any means but it was a great read.
The tension in Someone Is Watching You was absolutely delicious, for a while anyway. I was so on edge when Nia was exploring the prison and she kept thinking she was seeing things. Why is the idea of an abandoned prison so creepy? I’m not sure, but it was such a great setting for a game of truth or dare.
Now, the reason why I said the tension was great for a while isn’t something I can explain without giving an absolutely huge spoiler. But know this, the ending was the worst part of this book for me. Without giving too much away, I liked the idea that this was actually a supernatural/paranormal thriller, but sadly it wasn’t. I’m not going to say what was actually going on or who was behind it but it felt a little meh to me. It didn’t completely ruin the book as it was an interesting twist, but I would have loved the prison to be actually haunted.
Nia was such an interesting character. Well, maybe interesting is a bit of a stretch but that’s exactly what the author was going for. She doesn’t make decisions for herself and will quite literally go along with anything her new friends say. Hence why she’s lost in an abandoned prison. Her development is pretty substantial though considering the shorter length of this book.
The pacing was done especially well. I always worry with shorter thrillers that everything will move too fast and the suspense won’t be there. But Someone Is Watching You happened across just a few hours, with some flashback scenes, and everything felt very fleshed out and moved at a perfect pace. The characters were well fleshed out and I wished I had known this while reading, but the prison this is set in is real. It would have been so fun to look up the rooms that Nia was wandering through in the dark – that would have really upped the tension even more.
I’d highly recommend you check out Someone Is Watching You if you’re looking for a fast paced YA thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat.
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