When I was twelve, my mother gave me a copy of See Jane Run by Joy Fielding. (For those that have read that book, is that an odd book to give one’s twelve year old? Given what it ultimately ends up being about?) Since then, I’ve had a soft spot for Joy Fielding, although I don’t think I read any of her other books. I guess that’s like having a soft spot for a restaurant you went to only once and don’t want to go back to lest the experience prove less auspicious than on the first visit.
But, obviously, I went back to the Joy Fielding restaurant and read Someone Is Watching. It’s a decent thriller/mystery. A bit of Mary-Sue-ing with the protagonist (rich, super skinny but blonde with big breasts. I’m not quite sure why that was necessary to tell me that in the opening pages. I am capable of caring about protagonists that don’t look like super models and who have only a little cash.) No huge twist at the end and the book has enough clues throughout the text that the twist that does occur doesn’t feel like a punch-to-the-head or a cop-out. It takes place in Miami, and right now, outside my window, it’s raining into the snowbanks that still haven’t melted, so reading about warmth and sunshine might have been just what I needed. The book is decent and it’s good for what it is, but I read it because I wanted brain popcorn, not anything taxing.
The less decent parts: I’m tired of rape as a plot device. It always seems a bit cheap to me, like an pre-made obstacle that an author can pop in. While this book I think takes place in 2015 (or 2014 or whenever Fielding wrote it), it seems to take place in some sort of alternate universe where smartphones and tablets haven’t penetrated this reality. One of the characters is a surly teenager going to a very fancy private school, who spends her sulking time watching television on an actual television. No selfies, no texting, no sexting. Equally, this is in a universe where twenty-nine year olds wear pleated skirts and talk about wine-coloured dresses and refer to their ex-boyfriends as “lovers”. I don’t think this is how teenagers and twenty-nine year olds talk and act and do. Just throwing in a few references to Teen Mom and 1000 Ways to Die doesn’t mean the book is authentically 2015. This is a story about eighties characters who somehow are living, untouched, in 2015. This disconnect doesn’t really take anything away from the plot, but it kept annoying me as I read through.
Passable mystery if you like to read mysteries. If you don’t, you’ll likely find it hard to suspend disbelief.
Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding went on sale March 24, 2015.
I received a copy free from a goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.