Published By: Meerkat Press
Pages: 350
Released On: 31/10/2023
Simon Kemper is on the up and up- he’s out of rehab, and his band is gaining moderate success around Berlin. But out of the corner of his eye and over his shoulder, he’s always aware of her. The stalker. She’s at every show, no matter what city. She sends hundreds of postcards to his label. Worst of all, she acts like she knows him. Like she owns him.
When the stalker disappears at one of his shows, Simon is the prime suspect. Initially an effort to clear his name, his search for July quickly becomes a deeper psychological quest: to prove that his fears were warranted? That she couldn’t have given up her obsession that easily? The threads of July’s disappearance turn out to be tangled into every corner of Simon’s life: a trusted band member, a tenuous new love interest, a resentful ex, and the self he’s supposedly left behind. Narcissistic, insecure, and consummately relatable, Simon is the anti-hero of his own life– trying to want to be better; hoping that’s enough.
*****
Thanks to Kat for the advanced copy of her book in return for an honest review.
It was weird but for some reason, I didn’t think this would be the book for me to begin with, it isn’t like the books I usually read, and yet I was grateful for Kat sending it to me all the same. And if I’m honest, I really quite enjoyed it so was pleasantly surprised.
I wasn’t 100% clear of the genre. That’s not a negative as such, because some people like a multitude of genres, but personally I like to know what I’m getting into. There is a psychological thriller at its heart, but there’s also contemporary fiction, a mystery, a whodunnit without a boy, a detective novel…so, like I say, some people may like that mixture. It didn’t ruin the reading for me, but it’s just something I would have preferred to be a bit more specific.
There’s this sort of anxiety undertone to the whole story, to Simon and July, and an anxiety of the reader. It makes for a subtly uncomfortable read at times. It’s hard to do that without going overboard and obvious, but I think Kat has found the right balance.
One big positive point I have about it is Kat’s ability to describe. It’s very easy to list facts about a location or the appearance of a character. But she’s got under the skin of it all and it really beings everything to life, resulting in a stronger story to lose yourself in.
There is a plot, obviously, but that wasn’t really what I enjoyed the most. For me, it was the characters that ran this show. If you’ve read my reviews before, you’ll know that I prefer character creation over plot, and this book showed me why I feel this way. They all feel very human and all recognisable and familiar but with an edge. And it’s a nice parallel because we often see celebrities on our screens that we end up feeling like we know them, and there’s definitely a sense of that between Simon and July. It shows the nuances between strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family, and it’s just marvellously handled.
I mean, I’m not famous, and whilst there seems to be a lot of positives about being famous, there is definitely a darker side that we often ignore, and Kat has shown them to us in spades. This sense of stalking and obsession and safety. It takes the shine off of the celebration and celebrity lifestyle that so many people crave.
The chapters are a bit too long for me. This is another completely personal preference. I like short chapters, but I was almost half way through and it was only the third chapter. That’s fine for some people. I think having shorter, snappier chapters would have helped with the tenser thriller side of the story.
It really comes across as a quick read. It may be 350 pages long, but before I knew it, I was over half way through, and so you really do lose yourself in it, which is good as there’s nothing worse than a book that drags.
I wasn’t expecting the ending at all. I’d read some other reviews that said Kat was very good at twist endings, and so I did assume there would be a spanner in the works, but I didn’t predict it, and I think overall she ended it very nicely.
On the whole, I’d say it probably wouldn’t have been a book I’d normally pick off the shelf, and there were a couple of niggly things for me, but it was enjoyable, interesting, well created, and a good book to lose myself in.
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