"Call Me Evie" by J.P. Pomare is a psychological thriller that follows the story of a seventeen-year-old girl named Kate, who is living in isolation with a mysterious man named Jim. Kate, who Jim calls Evie, has no memory of why she is being kept in the cabin or who Jim is, but she knows something terrible has happened. As she grapples with her fractured memories and tries to unravel the truth, she must confront the dark secrets of her past and the reality of her present captivity.

The novel is told through alternating timelines, before and after the events that led to Kate's captivity. In the before timeline, readers get glimpses into Kate's seemingly normal life in Melbourne, as well as the disturbing events that hint at the darkness lurking beneath the surface. In the after timeline, Kate's struggle to remember and make sense of her past unfolds, revealing shocking revelations and twists along the way.

I thought the pacing was slow and the plot overly convoluted. I found myself struggling to get into the story. Nothing really original about it. This book just wasn’t for me.

The suspense-thriller genre is a good one to love these days, as there are always new novels being published and authors being introduced. Call Me Evie, a murky suspense story, is J.P. Pomare's debut novel and is a solid addition to the genre. In this twisted thriller, a teenage girl, Evie, is being held against her will by an older man; however, she doesn't know why she has been kidnapped, and neither do we. As the story unfolds, a clearer picture of just why Evie is being kept in hiding starts to emerge ... or does it? Don't trust your eyes on this one - I thought I had it all figured out only to be gratifyingly proven wrong by the end.

I don't typically read suspense novels about women written by men, so I was surprised to learn that J.P. Pomare is actually male! Despite not being a woman, I thought Pomare did a fine job of capturing the thoughts and feelings of a scared and confused Evie, and was able to provoke an emotional response in me through his book. Call Me Evie is told through a present day narrative, as well as through flashbacks, detailing Evie's life as Kate, the girl she was before she was taken away from her home in Australia and whisked away to New Zealand. Bit by bit, we receive more clues as to how Evie ended up in her dire current situation, and we learn just how big of a role she played in her own disappearance.

After reading some reviews, I found that other readers found Pomare's writing style difficult to follow. I, on the other hand, thought that it worked well with this particular story - as much as Evie is left in the dark about her past, so are we. We are fed what Pomare wants us to consume, which makes the book's surprise ending all the more satisfying. .

It took me a while to get into it and figure out what was going on because it is told in two different tenses, before and after. I liked it better about halfway through and didn't see the twists coming.

I abandoned this book. I tried to read it and it didn't keep my attention, I also tried to listen to it and I still couldn't keep my attention.

Good read. Had me wondering until the end where the storyline was going. The setting helped add to the story as well.

I feel like I am in the minority of this one. This took me months to finish. The reading was very easy and the story line was interesting, but for some reason I couldn't entirely invest in it. As the reader, you are given very little information and this does keep you guessing what is going on and who to trust. The ending was a little weird and felt a little out of place with the rest of the story.

I'm usually a fan of thrillers of all kinds, but I just could not get past the first few pages of this book. The descriptions of Evie's captivity and the abuse at Jim's hands were far too vivid, which is to the credit of the author. I may give it another go at some point, but definitely not a book I can see myself reading in bed at night!

Thrilling debut of psychological suspense. Fleshed out characters, and fast-paced. Difficult to put down. Nice twist ending.

JP Pomare joins the list of accomplished thriller writers with his novel, Call Me Evie. With a protagonist whose story we don't really know and a man who fluctuates between her protector and jailer, the reader won't know the truth until the very last page. Is Evie really Evie..or is she someone else with a devastating truth to hide?

I really enjoyed this book. A good story with loads of twists. You think you've figured it all out and then you realize you've got it all wrong. The main character is a 17yr old girl who is now "hiding" in New Zealand with an older man after an incident in her home town of Melbourne. The story switches between Before and After. The reader only finds out what the incident is half way through the book. Very cleverly done, very enjoyable.

This is a classic twisted thriller that's a super quick read that kept my attention the entire time. I could not predict the ending which is my favorite in thrillers! Great read!

There was nothing particularly bad here, but nothing great either. Another thriller with a back and forth time line and predictable set of twists. Same old tropes from every other thriller. I also thought some things weren't explained very well (How were all the people in NZ connected to Jim?)

An Australian seventeen year old is kidnapped and taken to New Zealand. This is a well written psychological thriller. It is definitely and page turner.

This book had potential, but really didn't quite live up to it in my opinion. I liked the premise--girl being held captive (supposedly), she has limited memories of a "horrible event" and her captor gives her limited information. He says he is doing this for her own good, but is he lying?
My problem with this book was the uneven pacing. Although I read it pretty quickly, it seemed as if it took FOREVER to get to the meat of the story and the chapters titled "Before" didn't add enough to the revealing of information. And the head hopping in those chapters was quite disconcerting--you didn't know until a couple of pages into the section whose head you were actually in, and that made me have to turn back and re-read because often I was wrong and then got confused.
There are a couple of decent twists, and I did get to the end. This author has promise, and with a bit more editing and tightening up of the weird loose threads and meandering segments that go nowhere, I would definitely read another book by her in the future.

I decided not to finish this book. I just couldn't get into it. The writing style threw me off from the very beginning, and even though I got more accustomed to it, It is very choppy, and fragmented, and just did not flow for me. I found myself really not wanting to pick it up even though I wanted to read. I feel like this is a very slow burn thriller which is fine, but there is almost nothing in the first 25% of the book that truly makes you want to know what's going on, start to try to piece together anything, or even really care what happens. Jim is not good but he isn't horrific so you root against him. He's also not good so you don't really care to know that much more about him. Evie is just kind of there. She has no willpower to figure out anything. As a matter of fact she distinctly tries not to remember even though there is not even a snapshot to make her not want to. I liked the past and present perspective, and I was much more invested in the Before parts of the book. Again it just didn't give me enough to keep wanting to know more. It just isn't the book for me. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to give my thoughts.

Call Me Evie is the début novel by author J.P. Pomare. It's the story of seventeen-year-old Kate Bennet, and her struggle to piece together her fragmented memories of one tragic night that changed her life irrevocably. It's fast-paced and extremely twisty, a book I'm glad I picked up.When we first meet Kate, she's been living in a run-down cabin in a beach town far from her home in Melbourne. She's been there for the past couple of weeks, and it quickly becomes obvious to the reader that Kate was taken there against her will. Her captor is a mysterious man who orders her to call him Bill and who insists on calling her Evie. She tries to escape his clutches several times, but her attempts are never successful. He always manages to catch her, and once he brings her back to the cabin, he reminds her that he's only trying to save her from some trouble that seems to be awaiting her back in Melbourne. Kate appears to have no memory of what happened before she was whisked away, and so the reader is left kind of confused by what's going on.As days pass and Kate's captivity continues, she becomes ever more determined to uncover the truth about the night she left Melbourne. Bill continuously asks her what she remembers about it, and she always tells him she remembers nothing at all. She tries to get him to tell her what happened, but he insists it's better for her to remember things on her own.Kate's memories do eventually start to return, but she's quite confused by the tidbits that come back to her. She doesn't know how Bill fits into the events of that night, so she's not sure she can trust him. Is he attempting to keep her out of jail, or does he have a more sinister reason for keeping her hidden?The story alternates between Kate's present and her past, and this narrative style is sometimes a bit confusing, given the initial vagueness of Kate's memories. The reader doesn't have a clear sense of what transpired on the night she left Melbourne. We're given a few hints throughout the story, but things don't become all that clear until about three quarters of the way into the book. Fortunately, the author was able to give me enough information to keep me engaged, so I wasn't at all frustrated by the things I didn't know.Since Kate herself isn't sure what really happened, it's not always easy to trust her as a narrator. I found myself wondering if the flashes of memory she had were accurate, or if her mind was playing tricks on her. There are times when she comes off as a bit paranoid, but it's hard to fault her for that given the strangeness of her circumstances. I found her to be a sympathetic heroine most of the time, even if some of the decisions she made weren't to my liking.There's a giant twist toward the end of the book that really shocked me. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of possibly cluing potential readers into the truth, but I applaud the author for her creative thinking. It felt very believable, and once I knew what the truth really was, things fell neatly into place for me. I wasn't left with unanswered questions, and I never felt the author was trying too hard to shock me.The blurb compares this novel to Emma Donoghue's bestselling novel Room, and while there are some vague similarities, I urge readers not to pick up Call Me Evie expecting the two books to have a lot in common. Room was a deep exploration of the effects of captivity on a young child, while Call Me Evie has the feel of a fast-paced thriller. Both are definitely worth reading, but I'm not sure it's fair to compare them.Call Me Evie is a deftly plotted thriller I'm happy to recommend to fans of psychological suspense. I was riveted by this book, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for what else the author has in store for readers.Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/KoboVisit our Amazon Storefront

The perfect mind bending twisty psychological thriller that I could not speed read because I needed to concentrate on “who is Evie?”, who is this supposed uncle she’s decided to call Jim and why are they on the run after an accident we only learn about in bits and pieces. I was hooked early on and the ending was brilliantly mind blowing. Cannot wait to read more from J.P. Pomare

I had to let this resonate for awhile before writing a review. It is not often that I am truly and utterly surprised by a psychological thriller. I’m usually able to discern even the most unexpected of twists fairly early on. Call Me Evie, however, completely surprised me. The story alternates between past and present and is narrated by Kate/Evie, who is being held captive by man known as her “uncle” in a remote New Zealand cabin. Being that the reader is oblivious to what is really going on until near the end, it is a brilliantly portrayed, slow burning plot. It is also beautifully written with captivating but not overly embellished descriptions. I found the plot to be unique, unlike any other work of suspense that I’ve ever read. And the ending was absolutely killer. This was an absolute pleasure to read and well-deserving of 5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley, G. P. Putnam’s Sons and J. P. Pomare for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Call Me Evie was a weird read for me, which was surprising because it has all the marks of books I love (thriller, teenager POV, mental health, who-dun-it). I don't think I ever really got into it - some parts were great while some parts dragggggged. There are some definite twists and turns, but those were most expected. While I wasn't enamored by this, I would give Pomare's writing another shot.

2.75

Call Me Evie is an outstanding debut novel that doesn't just deliver on the mystery/thriller front--it offers deft characterization which results in characters you actually care about! And it's so hard to write teenagers well, but JP Pomare does an excellent job. I can't wait to read Pomare's next book! Very highly recommended.