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I See You by Clare Mackintosh

 


I almost stopped this book after the first 30 pages, not due to bad writing, but because of my own reluctance to read books by British authors. I read the beginning of the book and then took about a day off from it to celebrate Christmas with my family. I was in no rush to get back to it, but did open it back up Christmas night before bed and then read it randomly throughout yesterday until I finally finished. Did I love this book? No. Did I end up liking it? Not exactly. Did I hate it? No.

The story opens with 40 something mom Zoe Walker looking through a newspaper while traveling on the Tube. Imagine her surprise to see her own photo on the page of advertisements for dating and escort services. While her boyfriend and best friend are hesitant to believe it is a photo of her, she is eventually convinced it is her in the photograph for a website called FindTheOne.com, a site she has never heard of, let alone joined.

Police Constable Kelly Swift is introduced in the next chapter, telling her own story (which of course intertwines with Zoe) in scattered chapters from her point of view throughout the book. Her personal experience with assaults on women have gotten her in to trouble in the past, and threaten to do so again during the case. 

Come to find out, several women have unknowingly had their photos appear in adverts for the website, which turns out not to be a typical dating site. It is instead a paid subscription service where men can go to download women's daily commute routines in case they want to arrange a "meet cute" or something more sinister. 

I don't typically care for books told from multiple characters points of view, and I wasn't thrilled with the POV changes in this book either. The person behind the website also pops up throughout the book to explain creating the site and the motivations of the people that pay for access to FindTheOne.com throughout the story.

None of the main characters are distinctly unlikeable, but they also weren't developed enough, or interesting enough, for me to really care what happened to them. It could be argued Zoe came across as a damsel in distress, reliant on the men in her life to protect her, which feels stale in 2020. I kept checking how many pages were left because the book felt like it would never end. Truly the only reason I can say I didn't find I See You totally repugnant was the ending. I can often tell before I reach the end "whodunit," but not this time around. I was 100% blindsided by the person behind FindTheOne.com, which was the best part of slogging through this story. That twist is the only reason I would recommend taking a chance on this book, but I would not recommend going out to buy it, or paying for an ebook. I borrowed it from my public library, and think it's only worth a try if you can also get it for free.


Book details:

Kindle Edition, 386 pages
Published April 4th 2017 by Sphere (first published February 21st 2017)
Setting: London, England


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Location: Maine, USA

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