 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we're talking about this book, without a cover. I hate it when I get these because I don't, this is a really nice cover also, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to read this one. I requested this from Atria Publishing. This is the same place I got the mansion, same place I got the, what was it, Us Against Them and Barretown, same place. Anyways, why I'm bringing all that up is I've reviewed them positively. I've reviewed them negatively. They're also the publisher of Carolina Ketnes' You and Hidden Bodies, which are fantastic. So I've given this company both positive and horribly negative reviews. This one I am glad to say is another positive. So we got two positives back to back, which is the electric state and this one. So watching you by Lisa Jewel, this is her 16th novel. It blows my mind that there can be an author out there that has 16 previous novels and I have never heard of them. No offense to Lisa Jewel, of course, there's just so many authors. It's hard to keep track of everybody. Anyway, so watching you is her newest release. It is out, let's see here. Oh, I've been telling everybody the wrong date. December 26th, so it's a day after Christmas is when this one comes out. This is good. I wasn't shocked at how good it was. I was a little bit surprised because it's a, just, it feels like, when you first get into it, it feels like your typical domestic thriller. That's what it feels like. And the whole reason I wanted it was, yes, it had a pretty cover. I might try to put up the pretty cover right here if I can find it online. Hopefully it's there, hopefully I'm not pointing at nothing. I'll put up the pretty cover, but I wanted it because of that cover and it had a stalkery vibe. I love stalker stories. It's one of the only domestic thriller tropes that I enjoy, kind of like you hidden bodies, of course. And what was it? Our kind of cruelty by airmentahall. Those three books loved those books and this was along the same vein. I think I just liked that trope. I think I liked that subgenre of domestic thrillers. If it has some kind of stalking in it, I am all down for it. And if it has a stalker that is likable or that doesn't know they're a stalker or it doesn't realize they're the stalker, even more so. I got goosebumps right now just thinking about it. I don't even need to draw. But anyways, our meat. But I had a blast with this. My favorite character was Freddy. There's a chapter. Chapter 59 was my favorite chapter. It's super short. It's only a page long, but it's my favorite chapter in the book. Now, the ending did get a little twist tedious. And what I mean by that is it is one twist after another. It felt to a point finally there at the end. It felt whereas getting forced. This twist, this twist, this twist began that twist. And then there was that final twist on the very last page to leave you, I guess, gasping. Which is funny because the very last twist of the book was the twist I was expecting the entire time. But then I started getting all these other twists. And it was like, okay, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they won't go there. But if I had written this book, I would have done this twist. And I'll be damned. That was the very last twist of the book was on the final page. So that was cool that that was included in there. Usually I don't like predictability in things, but this was this was fine because it just felt natural. When a twist feels natural, I don't mind it as much. Some of the twists in this one didn't feel as natural. One big one felt very hamfisted. It felt very forced. And that's the only reason I'm dropping this from a five to a four. But otherwise, every other piece of content in here is great. There are some truly, truly beautiful scenes in this book. There's a topic of Asperger syndrome that is kind of it's not kind of it's near and dear to my own heart, my own family. And her bringing up the characters and the character interactions in here of someone with that affliction, but it was amazing. I like and it's not, I don't really like calling it an affliction, but it's just a different way of your mind working. I appreciated the normalizing of it. I appreciated that. I also appreciated her tackling people seeing it as different, but not harping on the difference. So all that worked really, really well. And I enjoyed it very much so. And if you trying to get this without spoilers, but if you want to know the plot twist that bothered me, it was the bullying aspect felt so super forced. Everything else could have come off of that last page twist. Everything could have worked just with that twist alone. Other than that, it just felt like, you know, just oh look over here while I do this thing. And when you do that, you know, five times, it gets a little old. But anyways, I did like it. I did enjoy it. I'm giving it a very solid four out of five stars. But until next time, I have an E. You have an U. This has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye.