Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties, a virgin, and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a geography teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct, which he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel—involuntary celibate—forums, where he meets the charismatic, mysterious, and sinister Bryn. Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. He’s a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night. Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, following him in the shadows and learning more than she wanted to know about Roan and his family. Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre Maddox disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.
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Your rating:
3.5 stars
OVERALL: This book was quick and easy to read, and I was pulled along but not super 'thrilled'. Ending was good but somehow left me a bit unsatisfied/let down. I liked Jewell's writing and want to read more by her!
I read this thriller for the Page Turner Book Club, and knew very little about it before starting, just the back blurb. (I was a little concerned about the incel part, and if I'd be able to stomach/proceed from that bit...)
At the start, I felt like it had a slower start, where we were laying the groundwork. I felt really annoyed by Saffyre at the beginning--for me she was hard to connect to and coming across as really superficial and very teenage girl. But she did grow on me, and I later felt her more interesting and sympathetic.
Similarly, I began the book feeling ambivalent/mildly disgusted with Owen, and over the course of the book I found him to be a very nuanced character. Early on with Owen, it seems like he is a bit pathetic and possibly creepy, and I was questioning his reliability as a narrator during the entire 'inquiry at work' part. And I thought I knew where his story was going with him finding the incel forums and going to meet Bryn, so I was pleasantly pleased when he was disgusted with Bryn and seemed to dust his hands of Bryn. Which was way I was totally thrown later when the police say they've checked Owen's computer and see he's spent FOUR HOURS A DAY on the incel forums??? I felt like he'd moved on, and that wasn't really something we saw him doing after meeting Bryn?? Also when the police say they can find no records of YourLoss or of Bryn, I had a moment of again questioning Owen's reliability, wondering if this was a Fight Club situation...
Ultimately, Owen was an interesting character for the choices he made, and the fact that he was such an unreliable narrator. There were multiple times when I thought he was basically condemning himself with 'suddenly remembering' new information.
Roan was also an interesting character, it was hard to know a lot about him because we only get to see him from Saffyre's and Cate's POVs. I think this book might have been one level of more intense (needed, imho) with a Roan POV either in addition to or instead of Cate.
My opinions on both Saffyre and Owen changed over the course of the book, but Cate was kind of lackluster for me.
Also, the ending overall was somewhat 'meh' for me. I'm not sure why that is, but I just wasn't pulled along and thrilled with this book. It was easy to read and I was getting through quickly, just wanted more tension.
I will say that the very last page did leave a little ambiguity and mystery, could have been Roan or Josh who was potentially responsible for the attacks that Harrison was not responsible for. But I thought that Alicia's comments about Roan implied he was the one...
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