This was excellent. It was a good mystery. I enjoyed the characters and the pacing.

The twists worked well, and there were a lot of unexpected events and surprises. Side note: I am not often surprised by what happens in stories I am usually good at predicting most of what will happen. Kelley Armstrong is particularly clever and bold at throwing wrenches into her protagonist's path that I do not see coming.

I will definitely be re-reading the final version of this book when it comes out, and I will post a more thorough review.

Thank you to Kelley Armstrong, Penguin Random House Canada, Tundra Books, and NetGalley for the pleasure and honor of reading this early.

I enjoyed this book, it was easy to read and held my attention. I will be reading more from this author :)

Three and a half
A creepy look at memory and how it can be manipulated . The story centres around teenagers in a private school run by their parents employers so it's a rare and privileged scenario. Things quickly get dark though when one of the friends becomes upset and is taken to the VP's office. Here we get a horrific violent scene partially witnessed by Blythe but then things change and there's a perplexing funeral that doesn't quite fit leaving the reader with questions. The answers are slow coming which adds much tension particularly during the second half of the story. It made me think of the old nature versus nurture debate as the trauma continued for these characters with an ending that sadly whilst answering most questions didn't really leave me with much hope but it's a story that certainly made me think which was surely a good thing ?
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

To be entirely honest, I had high expectations for this book and was left feeling disappointed. It didn't live up to the hype I thought it would. The characters were good and well wrote but the plot was bland and predictable.

I LOVE Kelley Armstrong! She is an absolute genius! Someone is Always Watching is just the right amount of suspense for my tastes. I could have finished this book two nights ago, but I was home alone and well that wasn't happening.

This book is split between 4 or 5 pov's but they're all needed to tell the story properly.

I am a HUGE Kelley Armstrong fan, so I was very excited when Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada provided me with an eARC to read on review.

This book starts when Gabrielle, Blythe's BFF has several abnormal outbursts at their high school. Blythe and her friends (Tanya, Tucker) as well as her sister go the the same private high school which is funded by the medical research facility that their parents start work at. Other strange things happen as well, giving us a feeling that there is something sinister going on that the reader and the teens in the novel know nothing about.

Overall I found that this was an intriguing read, and a slow burn as other oddities crop up and Blythe and her friends investigate trying to make sense of it all. There are multiple POV's from various interesting well developed characters.

I am deducting one star as I feel that the plot does seem to meander a bit in the middle of the book.

Kelly Armstrong never lets me down with how beautifully she weaves her books. She has such a way with writing mystery it's hard not to fall in love Someone is always watching. I got chills! It can be a bit confusing at first as the protagonist has repeated events, but stick with it! You won't be sorry. I'll be adding this book to my Kelley Armstrong collection when it comes out.

This thriller is full of twists and turns which wrap around a well written mystery. Blythe and her schoolmates investigate a murder and disappearance involving one of their friends, but they are not prepared for the life shattering truth they uncover. As a long time fan of Kelley Armstrong I was not disappointed by this standalone novel. well written and gripping it is a very enjoyable read.

4.5 Stars

It's not a secret that I adore just about any book that Armstrong writes and I jump at every opportunity to read them. Something about her writing is just so engaging and downright magical. I am always being transported to a different place and experience and sometimes even to a different time.

She makes the impossible possible and all of her stories are so believable and fun.

Her latest is no exception. I absolutely was sucked in from the very first mysterious chapter and before long I was completely hooked and needed to know what was going to happen next and more importantly, what was real and what wasn't.

This kept me eagerly turning the pages and i loved every minute of it! I don't read a lot of YA anymore but this was completely worth it and I'm so glad I did. Definitely a story that will stick with me and make me wonder just what's possible and what isn't.

This book was mostly about one’s emotions, passions and ways to keep them inside or... not being able to do so. Because of that, you could quickly find yourself reading on. When you read about an emotion for 100 pages or so, you’re bound to do just that, but trust me when I say - stick around for the ending. It was perfect.. I LOVE LOVE Kelly Armstrong books !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really enjoyed this book! It was completely different from what I was expecting, but I think that's what made me like it even more.
What I was expecting: Mystery, someone in danger, friends on a mission to help whoever is in trouble, and an element of science fiction.
What I wasn't expecting: Bad boy x Good girl trope, a couple that I really liked, found family trope, the overall plot line of the story, multiple POVs.
Some chapters were a bit confusing, especially since there is a science element, but I thought that the characters were likable and the story was interesting. The author did a good job at adding in surprises, especially when it came to the character's backstories. There was a lot I couldn't predict in this book and it kept me on my toes the whole time.
If you're a fan of Karen McManus books/characters, especially Nate and Bronwyn, then you will really enjoy Blythe and Tucker. They were two of my favorite characters and I wouldn't complain if there was ever another book for them!
I also liked how the book was mainly Blythe's POV, but also a third-person POV for the supporting characters. It made it a little hard to read at times, but once I was about halfway through, I got used to the style.
The one thing that kept this from being 5-stars was that the ending fell a bit flat in terms of the mystery. CMT was such a big part of the story, but it felt as if nothing was explained or looked into.
I want to thank NetGalley and Tundra books for providing me with this arc!

I got an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you for that. I always love Kelley Armstrong’s books. What I loved the most about this was the little bread crumbs left through the books for you to piece together the surprise at the end. I’ll be honest and say I started reading this with no idea what the book was about. I had requested this book and forgot about it until the email came saying I got it. Once I got farther in I got sucked in. The start of the book made it seem like it was going in a different direction than it did. I enjoyed every moment of it though. One thing I wish she did in this book was include more of the friends from the group. She set it up that this group of kids were close, but I feel like at least one of the friends that was part of this close knit group just got dropped from everything. Almost like he was forgotten. When he showed up again it was for a second then gone again.
I loved the mystery in this book and was excited to see where she was going with this one.

Thank you Penguin Randomhouse Canada for the opportunity to read this book before publication. I love Kelley Armstrong as she is a Canadian writer and I am a Canadian reader. In fact, I was lucky enough to find a signed copy of her book at a thrift store. This is completely on me but I didn't realize Someone Is Always Watching is a YA book. I'm not a fan of YA and decided to discontinue reading. 5 stars for a DNF as I cannot comment on the complete quality of the book. However, what I did read was extremely well-written... It is just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada/Tundra Books for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Blythe and her friends know something weird is going on. Gabrielle isn't herself, and when an "incident" at school has her under psychiatric supervision, her friends start to ask questions. Siblings Tanya and Tucker, the latter of which Blythe has been told to stay away from, are on the case to figure out what's happening to Gabi, but there are more layers than any of them can imagine. Connected through the workplace their parents all share, the teens start to realize that not everything they know is true - and someone is always watching.

The title is intriguing for sure, and the book immediately launches into an aspect that connects clearly with that title. From there, it gets deeper. As the reader, you are given more information than the characters in the story have, but not enough to have everything figured out. It's a gripping story, and as it unravels, you find yourself wanting to know more and more.

The ending wasn't what I expected, but that adds to the mystery!

CW: violence, blood/gore, institutionalization, death, mentions of suicide, gaslighting, gun violence

I am a fairly huge fan of Kelley Armstrong so I was thrilled to receive this ARC of her new stand alone book. The story is unraveled slowly as we (the reader) learn what is going on along with the main characters in the story. Basically, this is a YA novel that introduces us to a group of teenagers in a private school who begin to realize that something is going on when one of their own has a break down.

This book held my interest and had me wondering exactly what was going on. The pacing helped to build the suspense as more and more things began to be revealed. After all of the build up, I will admit being less than impressed with the final climax, but it didn't take away from the level of investment that I had already.

I did feel that the character development with the main MC's was done well. Tucker was my favorite character and I continued to want him to be okay and for people to just give him a break. Bliss was okay as the straightlaced neurotic female MC and their siblings were also well developed secondary characters.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC. The opinions above are mine and mine alone.

*3,5 stars

This book is perfect for fans of A Good Girls Guide to Murder.

It starts as a very freaky story about a few high schoolers, where one of them suddenly snaps and kills their teacher - but the one witness doesn't remember it happening. It then starts to unravel a big plot about the group of teenagers, involving a neuroscience lab in the same town.

I want to start with the good things, I absolutely loved the unraveling of the backstories, how little pieces got brought together and we finally got to pick up on some clues. I especially loved Tanya and Sydney's clues. I do have to say that, if you pay attention to the personality of all the characters (Sydney's nightmares, Tanya's coldness, Tucker's love for his sister, and especially the way Blythe is overprotective of her younger sister) you can make the puzzle yourself the moment you know what kind of crimes are involved (I immediatly guessed Blythe was also part of the program when they mentioned a girl killing her younger sister, for example). But, that just shows that the characters are well formed, and I feel like casual readers might not pick up on those clues.

Talking about clues, this is my biggest annoyance with the book, and why I had to lower it to 3,5 stars instead of keeping it at 4. When your twist of memories being implanted to hide a crime only gets revealed in the last half of the book - maybe don't put it in your synopsis. It made this book a whole lot less exciting and thrilling to read, seeing as I already knew what was going on with these kids.

The ending was also a bit.. anticlimactic for me, I expected way more behind the CMT, a big old evil plot, but we never even got to know anything about the lab.

But, overall, this was still an enjoyable read, and young adult thriller fans will surely love this book!

I may have neglected some household tasks to finish this. Wow, what an amazing story! I didn't want it to end. This story is about a tight-knit group of friends and one of them is starting to feel an increasing sense of paranoia to the point she snaps. The question is, is it paranoia or is it something else? A definite page turner and I couldn't put it down. Kelley has yet again written another incredible book! Some trigger warnings might be needed at the beginning though. But I love this so much!

So I have read everything this wonderful author has ever written.

So when I saw she has written this gem I have to ask for it. If a book was a film this is that book, you get that feel of reading a film as you follow the characters stories from having no member to it slowly return and the ace rep was written so well and it make me happy to see it as ace is hardly written in a respectful way.

Teens and their actions and reactions are the main part of this story. Things are starting to happen within a friend group and they don't understand what and why their friends are behaving in certain ways and some of their actions lead to a lot of questions for the others to try and figure out what's happening. Dreams and memories are being triggered with these teens that don't coincide with what they think they know. A good book with strong writing, would have liked an epilogue for down the road. Thanks NetGalley.

Promising novel, intriguing plot, makes you think about what's right and what's wrong, the nature-nurture debate, ... But you have to make it halfway through before you arrive at what's described in the synopsis on Goodreads (and you won't read much that isn't yet described in the synopsis). So don't read the one on Goodreads but head over to Bookbub for the synopsis (as shown below).

~~~
Synopsis :
Their lives are a lie. Their memories may not be real. A new psychological thriller by #1 NYT bestselling author, Kelley Armstrong.
Blythe and her friends—Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya—have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives.
The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened.
Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?
~~~

Now a bit more into detail. When I saw Kelley Armstrong was going to publish a new book, I really wanted to give it a try because 1 I've enjoyed reading her books when I was younger and 2 the (Goodreads) synopsis sounds absolutely promising. The synopsis immediately brings me to the thing that annoyed me the most: it takes the main characters way to much time to start figuring everything out. As a reader, you basically know what will happen in 75% of the book just because of the Goodreads synopsis, but the main characters need the entire book to figure it all out. Only the details and the ending are new for the reader, all that happens in between is basically nothing new. Nevertheless the small plotwists are well written, the search of the main characters to figure everything out too. The plot is original and really appealed to me as a criminologist (the way CMT tries to rehabilitate the kids, the nature nurture debate, whether you could do all this in a deontological correct way, ... But don't worry, this book isn't an in depth analysis of all this, it just skims the surface very quickly). Once you get past 50% the pacing is good as well. You also empathise with the characters. The ending could have used a little more retaliation in my opinion, everyone still seems to get away with everything quite easily (plus the last two chapters felt a little bit rushed), but nevertheless all pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly at the end.
There was just one other thing that felt a bit strange to me. In the beginning, the context of the school is sketched, but soon that fades into the background. Along with the daily lives of the main characters, that also disappears. Suddenly, all that matters is unravelling what is going on with CMT. That there are only 24 hours in a day, that there are other obligations, all that falls away. This makes the story feel somewhat detached from reality at times. By this I do not mean that every time the characters have to eat or go to the bathroom, it has to be described. But a slightly better balance between the two extremes would benefit the story.

So overall I did enjoy the story, it offered some food for thought, is well written and sometimes keeps you on the edge of your seat. I also really liked the main characters. But I think a more limited synopsis that still reflects the gist of the story but without giving so much away from the beginning would benefit the reading experience. For example by using the one on Bookbub everywhere, that one would be a lot better, instead of the one on Goodreads spoiling everything. Hence 3,5/5 ⭐, because most of the story had already been spoiled before it even started, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.