I See You, by Clare Mackintosh | Book Review

Hello friends! In today’s post I will be reviewing Clare Mackintosh’s book, I See You.

Trigger Warnings: Rape Mention, Murder Mention, Stalking, Stalking Mention

It all starts during her commute home one night. Zoe Walker glances through her local paper and sees her own face staring back at her in a classified ad. With the grainy photo is a phone number and a listing for a website called FindTheOne.com.

In the following days, she sees other women in the same ad, a different one every day, and nearly all of them show up in the newspapers as victims of increasingly violent crimes–including murder.

With the help of a determined cop, Zoe uncovers the ad’s twisted purpose…And suddenly, the man on the train sitting across the car–the one smiling at Zoe–could be more than just a friendly stranger. He could be someone who has deliberately chosen her and is ready to make his next move…

In terms of summoning up I See You in two words, I would use “Ohh boy.”

I expected that I See You would have some creepy elements to the story. I didn’t think that the creepiness would go that far!

What I did not expect, but appreciated nonetheless, was the three points of view we read from. First we read from Zoe Walker who is a mom of 2 grown children.

The second POV that we have is from Kelly Swift, who is a cop. I’ll be honest in saying that I’m not too sure of what her stations were in the novel, aside from playing detective when the time came, but I’m glad that Kelly ended up in the position she was in by the end of the story.

The third, and final view point we read from is our antagonist. We don’t read from the antagonist often, so, when we did I was both equally parts intrigued, interested, creeped out, and plain downright disturbed.

I’m grateful that there are three points of views within I See You since each point of view kept the story from being too stale.

Furthermore is that I enjoyed that I See You gets underway within the first ten pages of the book. Speaking in terms of how fast this novel progresses, I genuinely enjoyed how fast the story was. Even though I See You is creepy as all heck, and at times incredibly heavy and filled to the brim with spine-chilling ominous intent, the pace ‘n’ plot moved with a light-footedness in which I believe saved the story. If not for how fast and consistent the plot was, I would have marked I See You as Did Not Finish.

Don’t get me wrong—-I enjoyed reading I See You. I just don’t think that I’ll ever be revisiting the story…ever again. Too creepy for me.

I enjoyed how unpredictable I See You was. I had thought that I had the perpetrator in my line of sight but boy was I wrong. Who the perp actually turned out to be threw me for a loop. I certainly did not see that coming. —- Like, there were so many people it could have been but I DID NOT expect the perpetrator to be who they were!! Like!! And what gets me riled is that they don’t even know the full story!!!

Right after I finished reading I See You, all I could think of was that the story, the ending, everything that makes I See You the way it is, is horrifyingly haunting. Like, I wanted to go onto all of my social media and delete everything that had my face in it. Phew.

I kind of want a sequel to I See You, just to see what happens….but at the same time, I don’t want another repeat of the majority of this novel.. 

I See You has certainly opened my eyes to what I put out on the Internet, that’s for sure.

I See You is the first novel I read by Clare Mackintosh, and I certainly believe that I See You held up in terms of what people thought/think of the novel.  

I give I See You, 3.5 stars.

I enjoyed it but I’m not going to re-read I See You, ever again. No offence. 

Have you read I See You? Did the story creep you out, like it did me? 
Have you read any of Clare Mackitosh’s work? 

Thank you for stopping by!

See you soon, and Happy Reading!
Adele