Someone is Always Watching


Someone is Always Watching by Kelley Armstrong is horror novel and classified under Young Adult fiction from the publishing site (Penguin Random House, 2024). Amazon lists the reading age between 7th and 9th grade (Amazon, n.d.).

The book follows friends Blythe, Gabrielle, Tucker and Tanya who are torn apart when Gabrielle seems to have killed their principal, but had no memory of the event. This one instance begins to tear them apart as they try to piece together what is happening to Gabrielle.

I typically stay out of the horror realm despite liking horror and have never touched a YA  horror book. So, this was a good chance to get acquinted with it. I didn't find this through any particular list done by the ALA but it was a book recommended to me by a fellow library that has seen some traction by mainly high school girls. I wanted to familiarize myself with an unfamiliar genre that seems to be a popular genre for young readers that gives me the impression of something like Pretty Little Liars.

Three aspects for evaluation I want to focus on are characters, mood, and point of view.

Characters are a very important part of any story and this book focuses on a small cast of friends that are slowly torn apart. I would say the main character is Blythe, but the main focus and catalyst for the story is her friend Gabrielle. Characters need to be multifaceted to be compelling and I think the story does and excellent job particularlly with Gabrielle as she is the one being the most effected by the violent and nightmarish acts that are starting to occur in her life and lives of her friends.

Mood is also important for a book of this type. Horror needs to evoke a breadth of emotions and the book explores that feeling of unease one needs to feel that keeps you up in the night. Looking at the incident that starts the plot. I love the feeling it provides. "The door is closed. I remember the sound it shutting and Gabrielle freaking out... Swallowing hard, I throw open the door, my fists already balled." "She's covered in blood. Her face, her hands, her shirt." The use of these really concise sentences give off a mood that is shocking and rather blunt. We can visualize the blood, the uncertainity of the situation and it's this mood that unsettles us and keeps us reading.

Lastly, point of view is very important in stories and Someone is Always Watching does something I really haven't seen much. It mainly follows Blythe in the first person point of view, but when we have scenes that are taking place outside of Blythe's knowledge the point of view shifts to a third person. It's an interesting way of informing us who the main character is and gives us more intamcy than we might with the other characters. Dialogue for them is "they did this." "they thought this." But if we turn to Blythe it's suddenly, "I thought this." It's an interesting way to tell the story and keep it fresh while also showing different perspectives.

References

Amazon. (n.d.). Someone is always watching. https://www.amazon.com/Someone-Always-Watching-Kelley-Armstrong/dp/0735270929

Armstrong, Kelley. (2022). Someon is always watching. Tundra Books.

Penguin Random House. (2024). Someone is always watching. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670010/someone-is-always-watching-by-kelley-armstrong/


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