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A review by zoe_
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Oh god, I have no idea how to feel about this one.
First up and most importantly: this was well written, the characters were developed well, there was an interesting plot. I absolutely cannot fault any of the basics of the book. The conflict I‘m facing relates to how I feel about the competently developed story. Thus, I would encourage others to check this book out for themselves should they find themselves interested in the plot.
My trouble isn’t even with the fact that the pacing is off. It‘s not the kind of thriller where you‘re trying to figure out what is going on, but it’s a sort of horror where you know something is really, really wrong and you’re just waiting for the big reveal. (I‘d say the reveal is so out there that it’s not really anything you could guess but, frankly, I did guess a lot of it. I actually overshot a little, if anything. This did not dampen my enjoyment.)
It’s not even really that I wasn’t a fan of the romance sub-plot. Though I wasn’t, I understood why Cole included it as a sort of safe-space but also origin of additional tension at the same time. It was quite effective at both (though I could have really done without the sex-scenes). I even liked both characters to an extent where I was sort of cheering for them to get together for a while, albeit more so that I‘d learn more about their backstories.
What I‘m most conflicted about was the one element that was done particularly well. Because Cole managed to paint such a horrible picture of Gentrification, I could really feel the horror that people who face it are dealing with. But then this horror turned into a major plot pointi.e. Gentrification became the actual horror element of the book that it twisted the realities of Gentrification into a sort of comical farce? Because Gentrification was a process of actual horror, its „not humans capturing other humans and experimenting on them“/real life horror became a lot weaker. It’s like the book was saying that a lot of the concerns were unreal because obviously what was happening was waay beyond reality. This was clearly not the intent of the book, though. Which resulted in the plot losing a lot of its impact on me. I know this is not what the book intended to do, moreover it dragged one of the best elements at the beginning of the plot into a muddle of weird I didn’t really enjoy.
I do really appreciate what this book was doing, but that last 25% were... a lot. And I‘m not sure that „a lot“ was for the best of the story.
First up and most importantly: this was well written, the characters were developed well, there was an interesting plot. I absolutely cannot fault any of the basics of the book. The conflict I‘m facing relates to how I feel about the competently developed story. Thus, I would encourage others to check this book out for themselves should they find themselves interested in the plot.
My trouble isn’t even with the fact that the pacing is off. It‘s not the kind of thriller where you‘re trying to figure out what is going on, but it’s a sort of horror where you know something is really, really wrong and you’re just waiting for the big reveal. (I‘d say the reveal is so out there that it’s not really anything you could guess but, frankly, I did guess a lot of it. I actually overshot a little, if anything. This did not dampen my enjoyment.)
It’s not even really that I wasn’t a fan of the romance sub-plot. Though I wasn’t, I understood why Cole included it as a sort of safe-space but also origin of additional tension at the same time. It was quite effective at both (though I could have really done without the sex-scenes). I even liked both characters to an extent where I was sort of cheering for them to get together for a while, albeit more so that I‘d learn more about their backstories.
What I‘m most conflicted about was the one element that was done particularly well. Because Cole managed to paint such a horrible picture of Gentrification, I could really feel the horror that people who face it are dealing with. But then this horror turned into a major plot point
I do really appreciate what this book was doing, but that last 25% were... a lot. And I‘m not sure that „a lot“ was for the best of the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, and Racism
Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse