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Kate Collins thinks she's met the one. She's about to move in with her boyfriend, moving to Brighton to be with him, but when she arrives there she finds his flat is empty and he is nowhere to be seen. The only thing left is his mobile. She starts checking his texts, his emails, anything to try and understand what is going on, but is left more confused. Then she finds strange things start happening in the flat...
At it's heart, this is supposed to be a story about our obsession with social media, which plays on the theme of ghosting (where someone who is in a relationship or just dating gets 'ghosted', i.e. the other person disappears and never contacts them again), but there are also the supernatural elements as well, which I thought would give it a nice twist.
My initial thoughts on reading this book were 'this is a woman that's written by a man' and 'that's not good'. Not all men write women terribly, but it's a common occurrence that immediately puts me off a book when I see the signs. Women don't think like this. Women don't act like this. Kate comes across as superficial, desperate, and obsessed with sex. She's also extremely unlikable, which isn't always a bad thing, but in a thriller/horror type story where I'm supposed to be rooting for the main character, having sympathetic and likable traits is a must for me. And I'm just thinking that Kate is stupid for moving in with a guy she knows barely nothing about after three months, is stupid for sticking around after he doesn't show his face, and is obsessed with social media to the point where she will neglect her friends and her job.
When I read the reviews for this, most of them said that this is a story about phone addiction, and more specifically, social media addiction. Kate spends a heck of a lot of time on her phone. It affects her friendships, her relationships and her job. She's tried to go cold turkey and get an old fashioned Nokia, but she's still addicted, and it shows when she finds Scott's phone in the flat and her first instinct is to hack into it and look at all his social media. I mean, she's curious about where he is, sure. But as time goes on, it becomes an obsession, and I would have run back to my familiar life long before that point.
The thing is with Kate is that she's not that likeable as a character. She comes across as superficial, easily manipulated, and obsessive. I think we're supposed to see her as vulnerable and feel sorry for the situation she finds herself in. After all, we've all been ghosted, right? It's not nice. But Kate just comes across as obsessive. She also doesn't sound anything like what women really sound like, at least not in my opinion.
That brings me to another big reason why I rated this book so low: the writing. The first few chapters were the worst, but all through the book the characters spoke in ways that just seemed wrong to me. Girls don't talk like this to each other, do they? I've never spoken to female friends like that, and they've not spoken to me like that. We don't call each other 'mate' - we just say the person's name.
One of the worst parts was on page 8, so I knew right then I wouldn't be enjoying this book that much, but I perservered anyway:
'What is the nature of Scott's secret vulnerability? Can't tell whether it's hurt, or fear, or self-loathing, or whatever, but it makes me want to mother him and f**k him at the same time. Yeah, I want to mother-f**k him.'
No woman I know would ever say that. No one. It's so ridiculous. Who says that?
Kate also uses lots of little idioms that no one ever uses, which got a bit irritating after a while. The text messages with her friend were a nice addition and sped things up a bit, but it wasn't enough to save that one. The other thing to mention with the writing is that it's a bit much at first. It's a bit heavy handed with the similar references, like in the first few chapters where Kate flashes back to the first few times she met Scott and what he looked like each time. I don't know. Something about the writing didn't really click with me personally, I think.
Overall, the characters, plot and writing let this one down. The ending made no sense at all, as did most of the second half of the book, if I'm honest. The whole supernatural slant this took in the second half was not really what I was expecting, despite the title and hints about it. I definitely would not recommend this book.
At it's heart, this is supposed to be a story about our obsession with social media, which plays on the theme of ghosting (where someone who is in a relationship or just dating gets 'ghosted', i.e. the other person disappears and never contacts them again), but there are also the supernatural elements as well, which I thought would give it a nice twist.
My initial thoughts on reading this book were 'this is a woman that's written by a man' and 'that's not good'. Not all men write women terribly, but it's a common occurrence that immediately puts me off a book when I see the signs. Women don't think like this. Women don't act like this. Kate comes across as superficial, desperate, and obsessed with sex. She's also extremely unlikable, which isn't always a bad thing, but in a thriller/horror type story where I'm supposed to be rooting for the main character, having sympathetic and likable traits is a must for me. And I'm just thinking that Kate is stupid for moving in with a guy she knows barely nothing about after three months, is stupid for sticking around after he doesn't show his face, and is obsessed with social media to the point where she will neglect her friends and her job.
When I read the reviews for this, most of them said that this is a story about phone addiction, and more specifically, social media addiction. Kate spends a heck of a lot of time on her phone. It affects her friendships, her relationships and her job. She's tried to go cold turkey and get an old fashioned Nokia, but she's still addicted, and it shows when she finds Scott's phone in the flat and her first instinct is to hack into it and look at all his social media. I mean, she's curious about where he is, sure. But as time goes on, it becomes an obsession, and I would have run back to my familiar life long before that point.
The thing is with Kate is that she's not that likeable as a character. She comes across as superficial, easily manipulated, and obsessive. I think we're supposed to see her as vulnerable and feel sorry for the situation she finds herself in. After all, we've all been ghosted, right? It's not nice. But Kate just comes across as obsessive. She also doesn't sound anything like what women really sound like, at least not in my opinion.
That brings me to another big reason why I rated this book so low: the writing. The first few chapters were the worst, but all through the book the characters spoke in ways that just seemed wrong to me. Girls don't talk like this to each other, do they? I've never spoken to female friends like that, and they've not spoken to me like that. We don't call each other 'mate' - we just say the person's name.
One of the worst parts was on page 8, so I knew right then I wouldn't be enjoying this book that much, but I perservered anyway:
'What is the nature of Scott's secret vulnerability? Can't tell whether it's hurt, or fear, or self-loathing, or whatever, but it makes me want to mother him and f**k him at the same time. Yeah, I want to mother-f**k him.'
No woman I know would ever say that. No one. It's so ridiculous. Who says that?
Kate also uses lots of little idioms that no one ever uses, which got a bit irritating after a while. The text messages with her friend were a nice addition and sped things up a bit, but it wasn't enough to save that one. The other thing to mention with the writing is that it's a bit much at first. It's a bit heavy handed with the similar references, like in the first few chapters where Kate flashes back to the first few times she met Scott and what he looked like each time. I don't know. Something about the writing didn't really click with me personally, I think.
Overall, the characters, plot and writing let this one down. The ending made no sense at all, as did most of the second half of the book, if I'm honest. The whole supernatural slant this took in the second half was not really what I was expecting, despite the title and hints about it. I definitely would not recommend this book.