I’m not a fan of this trend where authors use excessive flowery language to say very little. While I loved the narrator, the story did not hold my interest. I needed more plot and character development.

Creep is the perfect title for this dark stalker book featuring a British woman who becomes obsessed with getting with a man who unluckily for him, becomes the object of her affections. Right from the start, the narrator does an excellent job making readers uncomfortable with her intentions and you know things will not end well. While this wasn't exactly my cup of tea, fans of dark thrillers are likely to enjoy it much more. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

I could not, with with this narrator.
I'm going to try to actual ebook. This was a dnf for me. The writing style is a bit different for me.

What goes on in people's heads? What do the inner monologues of others sound like? What lies and affirmations do they tell themselves to get through the day? What do they obsess and ruminate over, spinning the same narrative around and around until it drives them mad?

Author Emma van Straaten can answer those questions for you, or at least in the way they relate to the rambling mind of the unhinged protagonist of her debut novel, Creep.

Alice IS a creep. She doesn't see herself that way, but we, WE can see it quite plainly. What we can also see is that Alice is unwell, which means that we are going to be spending a significant amount of time with the innermost thoughts of a deranged woman as she mulls over her latest obsession - Tom, the man whose home she cleans and for whom she has fallen madly in love.. Alice is convinced that she and Tom are destined for each other. The only problem is that they have never meant. Everything that Alice knows about Tom, she unethically gleaned from cleaning his apartment. Desperate to get closer to her "love," Alice is now resorting to interfering with Tom's life, hoping to get a chance to meet him face-to-face and prove to him that they are destined to be.

As you can imagine, this is not going to go well.

Told in a chaotic stream of consciousness style, Creep is a chilling deep dive into the every waking thought of a fanatical woman's dark and dangerous obsession. This novel is a gripping look into how the neurotic mind works, poring over every detail and moment of one's life, despairingly trying to assemble and reassemble the pieces until they mesh with one's warped perception of the world. Creep is a disorderly race to a disastrous finish, but the journey there is revelatory.

As a fan of the You series, I quite enjoy obsessive stalker stories and don't mind books that creatively take on the second person or stream of consciousness styles of writing. Creep has all three, but while many parts of this book were incredibly intriguing and mind-blowing, others were just too incoherent, winding, and verbose. Perhaps if I didn't have to work as hard to stayed rooted in this storyline, I would have very much loved this book, but as it stands, I found myself easily becoming lost unless I stayed glued to Alice's every maundering thought.

Hanako Footman's narration on this audiobook is fantastic. She plays the part of a woman passionately becoming unglued oh so very well.

Recommended to readers who enjoy getting into the minds of unhinged characters.

me rn and during the entire book: OMG GIRL NOOOOOOOOO

If you’re in the mood for a good cringe sesh and want to channel your anxiety about the current state of the country into something tangible, read this! The amount of secondhand embarrassment/anxiety/ick you’ll experience with this book is off the charts.

That being said, I LOVED IT!!!!

On a surface level, you’ll get the ick, like I said above, but I also appreciated the mental health aspect of the story. Yes, our protagonist is obsessed, but can she really help it?

(Thank you, Harper Perennial and Paperbacks, HarperAudio, and NetGalley, for the e-ARC and audiobook ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

A love so unrequited, Tom doesn't even know who Alice is, but that's ok, because Alice has a plan.

Alice has been cleaning Tom's apartment for over a year now, and has become certain that they are meant to be. The only problem is, Tom and Alice have never met, but Alice has consulted the stars and has planned their perfect meeting - in Paris, no less!

A taut and unsteadying descent into obsession, Creep is a disturbing and unsettling, the perfect novel for lovers of You.

Thanks to Harper Audio & NetGalley for providing an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a tough read: the FMC hates herself SO much, and is genuinely delusional, but is also very. very prickly and impossible, making it difficult to root for her. Still, it's difficult not to feel bad for her, especially as she continuously rejects possible safe, normal interactions with people who might genuinely care about her in favor of her own wild and never-ever-going-to-happen fantasies of a man she "loves," but has never actually met or even seen IRL. As a snide aside, if *I* were absolutely obsessed with someone I cleaned for, I wouldn't just restock their expensive French cornichons and eat their eyelashes; I'd follow their ass on the reg and try to see what their voice sounded like and whether they scratched their ass when no one was looking (or so they thought). Really, can we have some upper-level obsessive stalking here, please?

Alice has a chance at a decent life if she could just get over a traumatic event from school that tore up her relationship with her year-older sister, Cass, (elegant, successful lawyer, Mum's favorite) and rendered her a social pariah. Since she can't, she obsesses over her client, her overwrought imaginings ruling most aspects of her life as she pictures every movie-still moment, while in reality she binges and purges, and pinches her own "fat" stomach to bruising as retribution for feeding her body.

It's easy to see why this novel has taken hits for being over-written. The prose is lush, gorgeous, overfull of vivid description calling up every familiar human sensation (the author goes into great detail over periods and it even becomes a plot point later). Voice actor Hanako Footman excels at delivering these overstuffed sentences with perfect timing, the words burbling out and perhaps overtaking any rational thoughts Alice might have upstairs.

As upsetting and not-entirely-enjoyable as this book was to listen to, it was definitely a worthwhile performance from Footman.

Wow wow wow! I was completely, utterly, and deliciously uncomfortable from the first page to the last. The writing is stunning. The story was unhinged and I could not put it down! Finished it in one sitting.

Love the narration! I can't believe this is a debut novel. Will definitely keep this author on my radar.

I don't even know what to say about this super dark thriller. I typically love these, but this is just cringy. Would not recommend.

Engaging, entertaining, and expertly narrated. A recommended purchase for collections where thrillers and stalking stories are popular.