This book got off to a bit of a slow start and the story itself was a little predictable. The writing was good, and I liked the premise, but in the end, it just felt underwhelming, I'm afraid.

I received a copy of Watch Me from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review....

This was an entertaining story. But I can't help but feeling like it all felt a bit familiar. Starting with the Lifetime feel. It was a reminiscent of many of the movies we've seen on Lifetime Saturday Movie Marathon with our Moms. Lifetime aside, the story reminded me of something else....oh yeah, the story by Caroline Kepnes called You. And here is where the Lifetime feel comes back into play, because some may not know, but Lifetime actually picked the TV adaption of You up. I am not trying to be critical, I realize many stories have been told over time, but even the book/writing obsession was a detail both stories possessed. Maybe I am being a tough critic, but it lacked a bit of originality for me.

However, the story was interesting enough that I did want to finish it. I didn't have a hard time wanting to discover how it would end. But I would like to note, the beginning was a bit dry for me. I am not much of a romance reader and I understand the relationship had to be built up, but it dragged on a bit longer than I would have wanted. But this is a matter of opinion and preference.

I will also mention, Gehrman, evoked some emotion out of me. And to me that is successful story telling. At certain revelations, the main characters still allowed our antagonist into the house. I was screaming mad, but that is what makes a read thrilling.

Overall, I think this story could attract a great audience. But it is rather familiar type of story.

Sam is a college student who is obsessed with watching his professor, Kate a famous author.

This has all the makings of a great book, good plot, and great writing.

For me, the book didn't start to get really good until about 60% into their story. Although I loved Gerhman's writing and the ending of this book, not sure it was worth the wait.

As always, thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!!!

This book is about a college student named Sam who has a dangerous obsession with his professor.

I'm sad to say I didn't end up liking this book as much as I hoped I would. It ended up reminding me way too much of You By Caroline Kepnes. I'm not sure if it's just me but I felt it had a lot of similarities. I kept thinking about it the whole time I read the book.

I did like the concept of the book. I think it's so interesting reading things from Sam's point of view. I did find him extremely creepy. I did feel sometimes he's actions were a little unbelievable at times. It's just enjoyable seeing it from this different perspective. I do wish that the author didn't include Kate's point of view. Kate is the professor Sam is obsessed with. I just felt like hearing her side of the story really took me out of it. Things were going on in the book and I felt like she didn't question them as much as she should have. It was very frustrating to read at times.

Overall I just couldn't enjoy this book as I would have liked. I feel it had potential but it just wasn't the book for me.

Thank you so much Netgalley for a free copy for my honest opinion.

3.5 stars.

I thought that this was quite a good read. It was entertaining and addictive but I'm not very sure if it's a book that is going to stand out against other similar psychological thrillers.

I really liked the character of Sam. I thought he was so cold and aloof and I thought he was quite fascinating. Some of his one-liners and observations about other characters were hilarious and awful. I especially liked how he put on an act for the outside world- how he told us what he conveyed with his actions but then told us what he was actually feeling. I enjoyed his POV chapters more than I enjoyed Kate's. She was quite unlikeable and annoying but I think that was maybe the point. She was despicable in a different way to Sam, but despicable all the same. I did like the different POV's because I thought that they were actually distinguishable and I did love how they were short and snappy chapters. I do wish that we had gotten more of an insight into Sam's past because what we got wasn't enough for me.

I liked the writing. It was straight to the point and I enjoyed it. The story was alright. I was waiting for a big climactic moment at the end but it didn't really happen. From the start of the book, it felt like it was slowly building to a really crazy scene and I thought it was going to happen a few times but the actual "climactic" scene was a bit meh for me. I thought it could have been so much better if it was done differently and if it had packed more of a punch. The ending was also severely unsatisfying. I was left sorely disappointed and I think that this book needed either a crazy climactic scene or a good ending to leave a lasting effect on me.

I would recommend this to fans of psychological thrillers or to people who think it sounds interesting. I would read more by Jody Gehrman.

*I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
-------------------------

"Her urge to score, as always, outweighs any latent maternal instincts."

"God, I hate this. I feel like a whiny, self-righteous bitch, not to mention a hypocrite- impulsive slut one second, pious vigilante the next. Talk about an unreliable narrator."

I really did not care for this attempt at a literary psychological suspense story. I was tempted to put it down at least half a dozen times. It was confusing at times to know who was talking, Kate or Sam....maybe that was due to the poor formatting of the galley, but this was not a great thriller in my opinion. Sorry.

'Watch Me' is a fascinating story that can be really disturbing if you think too much about it. On the other hand, once you made it past this 'disturbing' stage it actually gets even better.

The book is described as a dark and twisty psychological thriller. You'll meet Kate, a college professor who also has a somewhat successful writing career, and Sam, a student of hers as well as one of her biggest fans.
This far, not that much of an uncommon setting. I kind of imagine constellations like this happen sometimes. Some people who teach writing also publish works and sometimes people get attracted to them because of their work. So, what makes this story unique? The key lies in the obsession of both characters and how far they are willing to go.
You'll learn quickly that Kate still suffers because of the ending of her marriage and the fact that her ex-husband is able to move on. You'll also get to know more about Sam and the way he was brought up. All this made it easy for me to understand their motives although I reached a point pretty early in the story when 'I can relate to this' became 'this is crazy'. Nevertheless, I loved the pacing of the story and although it escalated quickly and there were numerous situations where I would have made a different decision, it was a real page-turner.

What amazed me the most was the fact that the process of writing and publishing played a huge role. I've got a weakness for authors that have their characters discuss how a book is written and what kind of effect a trope has while using said trope to tell their story.

The characters are heavily flawed in this one - it's not easy to relate to them on all occasions. Sam's POV is hard to stomach at times but it adds a lot of depth to the story to hear his side as well. I was torn about Kate's character for a while because she just couldn't be honest with herself. Dealing with someone that big in denial can be tedious at times.

All in all, this is no nice-and-easy read but the dark and twisted thriller that was promised to you. I haven't read something similar in a while and thus loved reading 'Watch Me'. Maybe the book is too predictable if you go for this kind of story more often but otherwise, I definitely recommend reading it.

A very suspenseful, nail biting thriller about a young male college student maniacally obsessed with his female professor. For those into this genre you will find it very hard to put down. Each chapter brings you closer and closer to just what this man is capable of. That said, I didn’t enjoy this book due to the characters themselves. Although the college student had more depth to him neither one of them had much character. The professor isn’t believable. The characters are stiff. In my opinion every single character in this story has no personality. I’m sorry I feel this way, but others may very well be completely fine with them and will enjoy this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes this genre

Told in seamless dual narratives, this is a dark, compelling, and twisted thriller that will really begin to creep you out especially each time Sam's point of view is shared. These two perspectives allow you to see both the obsessive mind of the stalker and the conflicting emotions of the victim given that Kate doesn't immediately know anything untoward is going on. Gehrman skillfully crafted a conversation exploring the power of illicit attention and intense infatuation. Because of the dual narration, you know Kate derives pleasure from Sam's interest in her, but you also know how demented his fixation really is. She ignores some early indicators of his abnormal behavior, doubting her intuition because after all he's charming, attractive, and attracted to her. But he's also patient, possessive, and a psychopath.

Neither of these characters is at all likeable, but it ultimately made this story all the more believable and realistic. It would have been so easy to paint Kate as "good" and Sam as "evil," but there are these broad strokes of gray that ultimately took this story to the next sinister level.

This won't be the book for everyone, but I was truly captivated by the unfolding of a deeply disturbing and dysfunctional relationship. By the end, it was hard to escape the feeling that I wasn't being watched as well!

This would make a great movie! I could see the scenes unfolding before me as I read.

Watch Me gets 4.5 stars from me - the book description tells you what you need to know - Kate Youngblood, a creative writing teacher at Blackwood College has a stalker in grad student Sam Grist. But how seamlessly and effortlessly this nightmare waiting to happens unfolds is the beauty of this book. Told from the alternating view points of the two main characters, Gehrman shows us where Kate and Sam are in their thinking at any given time, and we watch spellbound as the cat comes closer, closer, ever-closer to the mouse he wants all for his own.

Creepy, heart stopping, shocking in the scope and breadth of Sam's obsession, we watch as Sam draws her in perfectly, crossing several lines as he, unbeknownst to Kate, masterfully manipulates things towards his own goals until he unwittingly makes a mistake. Can he recover from it and draw her to him again? Will she be able to escape her admitted draw to him? I won't tell! But the ending is PERFECT and this is one great read!!!

MANY thanks to NetGalley, the author, and St. Martin's Griffin Press for giving me hours of enjoyment and for letting me read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own. Trust me, they don't need help to sell this book. It's wonderful!

This book is a literary feast of beautiful writing of the most intricate human emotions. I am still amazed by the beautiful phrases and descriptions. “You don’t know me – not yet – but nothing spikes my pulse. I am ice. I ooze cool, unruffled detachment.”

Sam is obsessed with Kate and he’s willing to do everything possible to make his love fantasy come alive. The plot is carefully constructed, Sam is almost an omnipresent narrator at times. He is derranged and messed up by his childhood of wanderings with his mother and the multitudes of her boyfriends. In a way his intentions are good, but they way he does everything to get to his dream is abhorrent and crazy in a really bad sense.

Kate was not my favorite character, she is highly portrayed as a puppet in the hands of Sam, until one point when she decides she can get the control and fix things. Kate is also pretty affected by her failed marriage and hence her current status. Sam’s attention comes at a time when she most needed it to be adored and to feel that she is seen as a woman again.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St Martins Press for the opportunity to read and review this arc.

This had me on the edge of my seat to the last breathless page.
A small college town is the setting for this cinematic, literary thriller from Jody Gehrman. Suspense builds swiftly with a series of dramatic reversals and well-wrought characters. Recently-divorced professor Kate Youngblood’s job security and personal boundaries are being challenged by a might-be-fatal attraction to talented, decade-younger student, Sam Grist. Sam describes the college: “It’s the quintessential small, beautiful college. They’ve filmed seven movies here, and I’ve seen every one….It’s a sacred place, in spite of all the fucktards here. It’s sacred because it’s where I met you. I head straight to your office.”

Sam is an unreliable, yet charismatic narrator; he’s Holden Caulfield’s cousin or Humbert Humbert’s long-lost grandson. His interior dialogue is so crafty and delusional that it’s delicious to read. The relationship between Kate and Sam develops in alternating first-person chapters wound tight as two strands of wire. There’s a delicate edge between desire and danger, and Gehrman hones this edge line-by-line, scene-by-scene so that I could not guess how the end would play out. Kate admits to herself, “If he hadn’t walked out of my office when he did, there’s no telling how far it would have gone. The heat rolling off him. It was like sitting next to a bonfire. All that impulsive, tormented energy. I felt more alive than I’ve felt in a decade.” The irony here is that Sam’s actions are about to be revealed as premeditated and dangerous. Not impulsive.

WATCH ME juggles many meta-fictional plot elements: both main characters are writers; they go see Mamet’s play OLEANNA. One passage alludes to PSYCHO’s infamous shower scene. Sam surprises Kate with a first edition Nabokov (LOLITA). Conversation is seasoned with dramatic and literary references. “What do we know about first-person POV?” Kate asks in class. Sam replies, “It’s intimate.”

Contemporary hot-button issues (childless-by-choice, sexual harassment, gun violence, school safety, addiction, racial identity, internet security, celebrity stalking, age-gap relationships) layer the drama in this psychological thriller. Fans of GONE GIRL, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, or THE GOOD GIRL will—if you dare—discover a tingling addition to the genre. This review is based on an ARC from NetGalley. Disclaimer: I’ve taught college with author Jody Gehrman. But it wasn't the college portrayed in this novel!

<b>4 super creeeeeeepy stalker stars to Watch Me!</b> ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Fans of one of the creepiest stalking thrillers I’ve read, [book:You|20821614], should thoroughly enjoy my new favorite, Watch Me! Instead of creepy Joe, we had obsessed Sam, and his short chapters alternated with Kate’s, his victim. Have I mentioned how much I love short chapters in thrillers? #justonemorepage #justonemorechapter 💗

As one might expect, this is a dark story filled with twists. The build-up left me feeling anxious, and that’s how I know I’m reading a satisfying thriller. 👀

The only drawback for me? I only wanted to read Sam’s chapters. They were more engaging, and Kate’s somehow made her feel more distant and less intriguing than she might have been if the whole story had been told in Sam’s voice.

Overall, kudos to Jody Gehrman for a chilling, taut, obsessive thriller!

<b>Watch Me was published on January 23, 2018.</b> Thanks to Jody Gehrman, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for the complimentary copy to review.

This book was recommended to me by Meghan from St. Martin's Press Publicity as an ARC.

I can only say this was a creepy read, it makes you wonder about all the nice and warm people we meet in our lives.
Kate is a college professor who's being stalked by her most talented student. Who turns out to be a sociopath.
How will he win her to his side and how she's fighting to do the right thing, we travel into their own world and live each moment.
It's a fast read and hard to put down. A remarkable story that started with love, care and wishful thinking.

When a fan becomes stalker, the suspense begins. A professor and writer finds herself being swept away by her younger, handsome student. Then people around her begin to die. To what lengths would your biggest fan go to keep you to himself? This thriller will have you up late at night flipping pages and wondering what will happen next.

If you’re ready for a book to push you to the edge of your comfort level, and possibly over the edge of it, this thriller is just the thing.

The back-and-forth POV switch between Sam and Kate keeps the pace quick and breathless which I really enjoyed. Both characters are complex and interesting: complicated, broken, and slightly (okay, quite a bit) unhinged. I found Kate’s enjoyment of Sam’s attention to be really interesting. Just as there are stalkers that creep and terrify, there are also the charmers that weasel their way in. I liked this approach because it’s a bit different than other novels in the same vein I’ve read recently.

Something interesting with the book is that you don’t just have the stalker and that pathology in this book. You get inside the mind of the person being followed (Kate) and see the enjoyment of the attention being lavished. This book lingers after your finished and I like the message it leaves: When does fascination cross the line? When does it become stalking? How do you convey where that line is in your real life? As a reader, you can ask yourself where Sam crosses the line for you and I think the answers would be interesting.

There were some things I didn’t enjoy. The ending for one felt awkwardly rushed and unsatisfying. Sam occasionally breaks the fourth wall with the reader, which is a pet peeve of mine. His chapters too can be repetitive and wordy which would have made the book shorter but better in my opinion.

This is a thriller in the true sense of the word. There’s some language and violence but none of the gore that can sometimes override that feeling of the hair standing up on the back of your neck that a good thriller gives you. All in all, a good read and an interesting way of telling a story.


Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher St. Martin’s Press, and the author Jody Gehrman for the opportunity to do so.

So I find stalker books fascinating. It's like watching a car accident, you know you shouldn't stare but you can't look away. I would never wish this on anyone in real life but in a book it's always interesting to read. I liked this book for it had both points of view in it. There were points when I wish the two main characters would get together but I think it was more of what Kate was feeling then what really should happen. I did enjoy this book from start to finish, like any book there are parts I could have done without but overall it was a good book.

https://catseyekeyonnawordpresswordpress.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/watch-me-by-jody-gehrman/?preview=true

Obsession meets sexual attraction....

This novel gets into the minds of Kate (a college writing professor) and Sam (her student who is stalking her). Written in alternating first person narratives of Kate and Sam. What made this one different from other "stalker" type novels is that Kate also has an attraction to Sam. This creates a lot of sexual tension and causes Kate to put herself at risk and then has to "check" her ethics and motives. This part intrigued me and set it apart from a run of the mill stalker story.

Sam is a sociopath and has plans to spend the rest of his life with Kate. No matter what! I thought the author did great job with Kate's character, but Sam was lacking some development and his thoughts were somewhat repetitive and limited to his obsession with Kate.

It is fast paced and starts to get repetitive, but it really picks up in the last third. I liked the end, but also didn't think it was realistic. This has been compared to You by Caroline Kepnes, but it reminded me more of Exquisite by Sarah Stovell. Although I enjoyed this one much more.

I think fans of stalker stories will enjoy this one and it wasn't overly dark or graphic in my opinion.
I liked it and would like to read more from this author!

Watch Me is a modern day Fatal Attraction. A story of obsession and enthrallment, small mistakes and large consequences, this novel is the tale of what can happen when we step off the safe, mundane path life has set for us.

Kate Youngblood is lamenting her mediocrity. Recently divorced, she is slowly coming to grips with the reality that women who are close to forty are not a hot commodity on the dating scene. Her plan to be a multi-bestselling author has completely stalled and it looks as though her first psychological thriller may also be the only decent book she ever writes. Her academic career, as a creative writing teacher, is in jeopardy; although she’s up for tenure she is not a favorite with faculty or students. She’s always thought of herself as special; smart, attractive, strong and just the right amount of risqué and daring. Now she’s realizing that her best years are behind her and she is likely to fade into obscurity, just another middle-aged woman who had a mildly interesting youth but has nothing to distinguish her in the present.

Sam Grist has all the potential, talent, drive and beauty that Kate once had. Easily the best student writer she has ever come across, Kate is for once anxious to do her job well. She can mentor Sam, fan the flames of his talent until they burn so bright they light the paths of both their futures. The great news is Sam seems as eager to learn as she is to teach. The only problem is, the lessons he is after don’t involve literature.

Life is full of pulls towards the forbidden; the extra cookie we absolutely shouldn’t have, the shoes we definitely can not afford, the car that will swallow up our whole paycheck, the relationship that pulls us toward the dark side. It’s no accident that these things find us at our weak times: the cookie glistens with colorful sugary flecks most brightly on the days we fight with our children; the shoes appear seemingly from nowhere on the day we realize that a layer of makeup no longer covers the fine lines on our face and the mysterious, enticing stranger shows up when we find ourselves bored with our average life and longing for some adventure. This theme is so relatable to everyone that we should be able to immediately sympathize with Kate and the dark road her life is about to go down.

Unfortunately, the author fails to connect us sufficiently to her characters to let empathy build. Loner Kate, with her odd ideas about love, and her utter disdain for those around her, doesn’t fill us with pity and understanding but a vague horror that we too can appear this desperate to our acquaintances when we are going through dark times. She is also not very bright. How many people still leave notes next to the computer with their passwords? How hard is it to memorize a short sequence of letters and numbers that completely rule your life? Sam fares even worse than Kate does; he is an utter cliché; a psychopath whose problems are laid at the door of a drug addicted, sexually promiscuous mother.

Snail’s pace plotting adds to the story’s woes. Each bad decision Kate makes, each bizarre action of Sam’s occurs in agonizing slow motion. It took me close to a week to read this book, where the previous two mysteries I had recently perused took under a day each.

The lack of empathy and lethargic pacing led to what is the killing blow to any suspense novel: a lack of urgency. I had no desire to turn the page and see what happened next because I didn’t care what happened next. And the buildup took so long that no moment came as a surprise or shock; there was zero suspense because the author telegraphed what the characters were going to do long before they actually did it.

The bright spot in all this is Jody Gehrman’s prose. It is clear and crisp, each scene painted with the perfect amount of detail. While Kate isn’t a very sympathetic character the author is able to capture with absolute perfection the emotions and reality of a middle-aged woman and that sense of invisibility that comes with aging. There are shining sequences in the story that highlight the odd experience of being human; smoking furtively like criminals on a back porch and a comical scene where Sam is told his writing is unrealistic when it is re-creating an event from his life exactly the way it occurred. These things keep the story from being bad but unfortunately, don’t raise it to the level of good.

Watch Me is a book that falls in the hinterland of recommendations. If it were a novel in a sparsely populated genre, it might be worth reading simply because it’s rare. However, the suspense field, especially psychological thrillers, is saturated right now. Good books abound and unless illicit teacher-student relationships hold a particular interest for you, I think readers would be better served choosing a different novel.