Someone is Always Watching by Kelley Armstrong is a young adult type thriller set in a closed community. When strange memories start to surface, for the teenagers of the school they need to figure out what is true.

I enjoyed this book but felt they could have explored more of the adult side of the book for more of an insight into what exactly they were doing. Overall a good book and kept me hooked.

I think I'm pretty open to reading all kinds of books but this was just too over the top and weird for me. By the end I just skimmed through it, to be honest.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing a digital copy in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.


I love a good YA horror book and was really pleased with how fun and creative this one was. Blythe and her friends, Gabby, Tanya, and Tucker (dumbest names for siblings ever) go to school together, but when Gabby becomes unexplainably violent, they have to solve the mystery of why.

Gabby goes missing, and Blythe and friends try to find out where she went. Gabby also receives mysterious emails from “Veritas” who seems to know a lot about her friends’ childhoods before they moved to town.

The mystery of this book was so fun. Although I figured out where the book was headed, having it unfold in a well-written way was satisfying. The characters were great, the plot was unique, and I really enjoyed this one!

This was an interesting read.

Kelley Armstrong is my top favorite author but this wasn’t my favorite.

I liked the horror elements for sure but I felt the teens are so bratty.

I’m all for entitled teen and revenge but this was annoying teen to where I wanted them gone.

Regardless still an entertaining read.

Thank you so much for the ARC!
The writing was very good with the storytelling. It was truly unexpected for me and I love that in thrillers. I enjoyed the main character and loved the relationships that were built throughout the book!

The book begins with Blythe and Tucker meeting as kids. Today, however, she’s in high school seeing a boy named Callum. Tucker is close with his sister, but she can’t seem to keep her mind off of sacrificing animals. Blythe’s sister doesn’t want Callum to date her, creating tensions, but something weird is happening with her friend Gabrielle, and she’s sketched out by the school’s security cameras.

She says her parents are dead, and she hasn’t forgotten about the camera’s, but Blythe hears this through a vent, ease dropping. Right after this, she hears her friend kill the vice principle of their school, bashing him over the head with his own trophy. After this, she finds and knocks out Blythe with it.

After this, Blythe starts getting false memories about the episode. That she slipped and fell in the shower, and that’s how she got hurt, rather than what actually happened with her friend. She starts hearing things, and seeing gory things. Then she starts getting weird emails, too. Ones that talk about what her friend Gabrielle really did. But she’s in the hospital.

After Blythe’s little sister Sydney is knocked out and almost set on fire after trying to find Gabrielle, Blythe and her gang of misfit friends vow to figure out what’s actually going on. And they’re never going to expect what they find.

Overall, I had a hard time getting into this book, even though the plot was exciting and different from what I’ve been reading lately. As a fan of the author, I was excited to check it out, but was kind of disappointed by it. I think I would give it three stars just because I had such a hard time getting into it.

I adore Kelley Armstrong, but I am not a huge fan of who-done-it thrillers or young adult thrillers anymore. But I will keep reading anything else by this author!

Kelly could write about paint drying and I would read it and love it.

This was totally not what I was expecting, but I still loved it. I definitely recommend going into this book blind because there are so many mixed reviews. It was such a good thriller that kept me flipping pages and trying to guess what was happening next. I really was captured by the characters from the get-go, and with the red herrings I was continuously hooked until the very end.

Thank you to Kelley Armstrong, Tundra Books, and NetGalley for an eARC of Someone Is Always Watching!

There are spoilers in this review, so tread cautiously!!

This book sucked me in with action and intrigue from the first few chapters. I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical when one of the first scenes was a girl freaking out about cameras and people watching her, but I think Armstrong guided the story into a really interesting direction. She did a great job of laying out little breadcrumbs of clues and slowly tying together the mystery.

I did feel like the additional deaths among the friends were a bit dramatic and unnecessary. It felt like the author was adding additional trauma to these kids and families who were already traumatized enough. Though Callum's death did contribute to the plot, I felt like Deven's was unnecessary and that story line could have been wrapped up in a different way.

I was left wondering if this book would get a sequel. After checking the author's social media, the book is described as a standalone and there wasn't much coverage about it at all so my gut says no. It would be interesting to see where these characters are 5 - 10 years down the line and what other drama unfolded because of the experiment.

I truly did enjoy this book and, while I was disappointed with some plot points, I devoured the book in just a couple days. 4/5 stars.

Yet another amazing book by Kelley Armstrong. The way she builds worlds and the people in them is incredible. If you were a fan of the darkest powers world you will love this too!

Unfortunately this book wasnt for me - I found that it got quite convoluted and hard to follow in places.

Was a strong start and I anticipated a thrilling mystery. But after the first portion it went downhill and became very predictable and quite boring. I don’t know if it’s bad writing or poor editing but this needed something else

Post Gone Girl, some books just have too many twists. This is one of them. It started with a wild scenario and just got crazier as the story went along.

This was such a good book. I could not put it down, I had to know what happens. I read it in one day! I would definitely recommend this book.

Meh. This was ok, but nothing to write home about. I read a lot of YA thrillers so I’m not expecting anything super great, but this was just so-so.

*Review will be published 7/12/24

This was a very... interesting book. It had its ups and downs. Mystery/thriller really takes on a new meaning in this book when the characters can't even trust their own memories. I remember asking myself what the heck was going on half the time, haha. It was very confusing at times trying to sort out all the details and figure out what was happening, but I was highly invested in seeing things through to get some answers. 

I didn't feel too attached to any of the characters. I think Tucker and Blythe might have been the only ones I was interested in. They had a bit of romantic angle to their relationship, but I didn't find myself caring too much about it. I think because the characters felt detached from the story I couldn't bring myself to care about their relationships. I was mostly just looking to figure out what was going on and learning about their backstories for the sake of filling in parts of the plot. 

The overall plot ended up being much more complicated than a simple mystery/thriller which was pretty fun, but I still wished the other parts of the book had been just as good. I'm a huge fan of Kelley Arstrong's work and I think this was a pretty ambitious story to tell. Although I enjoyed it, I'm not sure that it was executed as well as her other works. I'd still recommend it though if you're looking for a quick, interesting mystery/thriller!

Someone Is Always Watching was one of those books I couldn't manage to put down. I was interested from the very beginning, and just continued to get more and more intrigued the more the mystery unraveled! I loved the premise, and while I think some suspension of disbelief is necessary for this one, that's not a bad thing. I'm glad I picked this one up!

3.75/5

This one was def a little over the top at times 😅

I went into this book blind since I’m a huge fan of Kelley Armstrongs writing and books, she’s always been an automatic buy/read for me! For a YA thriller it definitely kept you on your toes and trying to piece together what was happening.

At times you were trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not & the ending definitely caught me off guard 😅

If you’re a YA fan or a psychological thriller junkie I think you’d really like this book! i may be biased because I’m a huge fan of the author 😂

Thank you netgalley for the e-arc!

I was utterly captivated by the masterful blend of suspense and the supernatural, making it an unputdownable thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page.

This book threw me a bit. I was expecting a thriller, but I didn’t expect a slightly dystopian vibe. The plot was interesting and there were some nice curves throughout the story. Anyone who reads a lot of thrillers will probably see them coming, but I’m confident my students will enjoy the ride.