How can there be such trouble in this world.

Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Bailey Carpenter is a successful private investigator for a large law firm in Miami. While still reeling from the deaths of both of her parents, her life is fairly benign, until she is attacked one night while investigating a client.

Suddenly, Bailey's life is turned upside down. She's unable to sleep, eat, or work. She spends her days (and nights) trapped inside her condo, suffering from crippling anxiety and nightmares, and wracked with guilt from the attack. She starts watching her neighbor in the building across the street using binoculars, but things get even more out of control when she realizes he may be watching her, too.

First of all, a definite trigger warning that this book depicts a pretty brutal rape. It's tough to read about, and I would hate for anyone to pick up this novel without realizing its subject. I do applaud Fielding for trying to cover such a hard subject, though I'm not sure it's always accurately portrayed.

The book gets off to a slow start - I almost put it down. It's a hard subject to read about, and Bailey is a little hard to like and understand at first. The storyline gets a bit incredulous, but it certainly picked up, and I tore through the second half of the book. It ties up a little easily - and I'm not sure I buy Bailey going from completely devastated to seemingly okay, but I appreciate Fielding trying to show how much rape can hurt and leave its victims feeling powerless.

Overall, it's an interesting read and Bailey's niece, Jade, is a fun character. It would be great to see the two of them appear together again.

Note: I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.



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