When No One is Watching

If “All Lives Matter” has ever come out of our mouth as if you thought you were saying something, this is not your book. If you are that person, you'll just write a review about how the main character is an angry black woman, the author is racist against white people, how it wasn't a thriller until the end, and the resolution came out of nowhere.

In reality, the main character has a lot of reasons to be angry and depressed, the author is just holding up a mirror, tension started mounting on page 1, and everything was clearly foreshadowed. A lot of the end was ... inevitable. Everything you thought was over the top has happened in some form. The book actually mentions those forms.

Sydney's close-knit community is changing fast. Everything and everyone who meant safety to her is disappearing. She's a Black woman, and her life is one viral video of Karens* making her life miserable after another, only without the viral video. Nothing feels safe. She doesn't know who she can trust. So many things are just a little off, but not so off that if she told someone she wouldn't be in danger of being committed, or at least laughed off.

Like a lot of thrillers, this operates on the old saying that you're not paranoid if people are really out to get you. The last several years would make anyone paranoid who is confused over why people they thought were good and decent are anything but, what with racism and misogyny running rampant. It makes you wonder what's going on, and if things are still worse than we even know.

This is a book about if all those fears are built on a foundation of fact.

I would love to see an intelligent group of students be assigned this.

The romance was only okay for me. Theo, the love interest, wasn't my favorite, or nearly good enough for Sydney. But he did pass the friendship test in terms of “shovel duty.” The style of the sex scene felt out of place, and more in line with her romance novels.

This is such a tiny issue in a book I adored.

(Library borrow through Libby.)

*Karen is a lovely name. I think it means pure. If you're a nice she, he, or they named Karen, it's not about you. Used for shorthand.