Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

20 reviews

thet0meraider's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

3.75

I can't say I'm disappointed with this book, but it wasn't utterly surprising either. I like my murder mystery thrillers to keep me engaged from the start and to shock me in the end, and that didn't occur with this novel.

It took me quite a while to get really interested in what was going on. Watching you starts with one of the main characters, Joey, who is also the person I ended up liking the least, so I had a bit of a hard time to get invested in the story. As the plot progressed, though, I just found myself wanting to know more and more about the characters.
Jewell did a good job at crafting a misleading story, one that successfully steers the reader in a certain direction just to shock them in the last few chapters with the grand revelation. This being said, I can't say i'm completely satisfied (hence the 3.75 stars instead of 4) due to the fact that I guessed the plot twist at about 80% of the book. I think at that point it was quite obvious - yet again, this could be just a by-product of my "experience" as a person who reads almost exclusively thrillers (at a certain point, themes and schemes become sort of recurrent). In spite of this, I couldn't put it down in the end. I knew what was going to happen, but I wanted to know how and i was definitely happy with what Jewell did. 

I would totally recommend this. In the end it will have you angry, furious with life's injustice and quite understanding towards the culprit. 


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wombat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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greatexpectations77's review against another edition

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mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I finished this, but I'm not sure that I had to. Everything felt very formulaic and kind of unbelievable. It lacked that "what???" feeling that you hope to get from a thriller/mystery. 

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sophiegreen1's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0


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taraswanson23's review against another edition

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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georgia_pogson's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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ohmyohmaggie's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Clever, well-paced, functioning plot. I read this book in a day or two. I find a lot of mysteries kind of lose the plot towards the end and the ins-and-outs become hard to follow and bit far-fetched. But this made sense the entire time and I was satifisfied at the end. I felt like I was able to track the story and make my own predictions,  but yet it wasn’t a predictable plot, it was just well-thought through. A bit steamy too without being over the top.

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katyallred's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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whatellieread's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

In true Lisa Jewell fashion, this one was fast-paced and the chapters were short as - in my opinion - all good thrillers are. I was invested early on and enjoyed the story unfolding. I was a little disappointed that I guessed almost all the "twists", but that did give me a level of satisfaction that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't guessed so much.

I loved inclusion of the police interviews periodically throughout the book - I've always been a sucker for books that include different formats throughout! This is also slightly irrelevant, but I was disproportionately annoyed by the fact that the police were continually referred to as Somerset and Avon Police, not Avon and Somerset Police as they're actually called. Infuriating because I can see no good reason why this choice was made?!

Overall, a fairly good read and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys Lisa Jewell's work.

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morganperks's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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