Hi my bookish friends! I did a thing last night and finished two books! I got home around 5:15pm and sat down and finished the Sci-Fi book I was reading, as well as the Psychological Thriller I got from NetGalley. The book I got from NetGalley out of the Read Now section is called Click by L. Smyth. This book is being released for sale on March 29th, so just a few days away, by the publisher Harper Collins UK.
Eva is a very socially awkward young women who goes off to University looking to make a new life for herself, and make lots of friends during her first year. Unfortunately, it is nothing like what she expected and spends most of her free time obsessing over the social media accounts of the other students in her courses, almost as a substitute for having face to face social interaction. One day she notices Marina, a girl having an argument with one of her English Professors who teaches a lecture. After witnessing a questionable interaction between Marina and the Professor, Eva starts stalking Marina on social media but doesn’t find a lot and ends up befriending her. From there, the friendship between Eva and Marina is questionable and seems very one sided as Eva portrays Marina as a very attention seeking and demanding person. At first Eva loves the attention and the demand of being Marina’s friend but as mid-semester break arrives Eva starts sticking up for herself against Marina. They get into an argument which results in Eva pushing Marina over in her chair and they stop talking. Over break Eva starts to feel guilty about what happened between them and begins stalking Marina again, only to find that her social media accounts are shut down. Eva starts to panic that Marina has blocked her, so she sends a bunch of messages to their mutual friend and classmate, Henry. When Henry reaches out to Eva toward the end of break, asking if she’s spoken to Marina and knows where she is because she’s run off, Eva flies off into a frenzy trying to find out what has happened. I’m sure you can imagine the degree of creep from there, but oh it gets even better! To find out you should really, really read the book!
What I absolutely loved about this book….
I loved how creepy L. Smyth made Eva, she is basically a super stalker with a very unhealthy obsession with Marina. I started to wonder if Eva was having psychotic breaks, as sometimes the incidents she would talk about just seemed too out there to be reality, and you definitely start to wonder in the last 50 pages of the book. The ending absolutely blew me away! I did not see that ending coming and was very surprised. This was my first time reading anything by L. Smyth and I instantly fell in love with the writing style. It was very smooth and flowed really well, there were certain points where I could not put the book down. I enjoyed that the book was written in Eva’s perspective, as she recounts her story of her friendship with Marina, and the events leading up to present day. Occasionally we come back to present time as Eva provides an explanation or further details and then the story delves back into the events leading up to the chaos. I almost feel that if there had been an additional Point of View added it would have taken away from the Psychological aspect and it wouldn’t have been as horribly creepy. I’m really starting to question being on social media thanks to this book!!!
What I struggled with….
There were times where the story had a lull, where Eva was describing what she was doing, or what she and Marina would talk about. Which isn’t bad, as there were only a few parts that felt like that for me. In a way the lulls made for a great dynamic to the excruciatingly awkward and creepy parts of the book.
If you like Psychological Thrillers, or are looking to branch out and don’t particularly want something too gruesome, then I definitely recommend this read! I basically read it in two sittings, half the book one sitting and half the other. It was a very clean, gripping Thriller and I really hope this Author writes more books. Thanks for checking out my review of Click by L. Smyth, and Happy Reading!
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