Read Me
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Hitchcock's Rear Window meets Messud's The Woman Upstairs in this unnerving, superbly crafted novel which takes readers deep into the mind of a serial stalker and, through him, the lives of his unsuspecting victims.
Try it yourself. Go out, pick somebody and watch them. Take your phone and a notebook. Persist. What begins as a confluence of yours and another person's journeys, on the train maybe or leaving a cinema, gets into an entanglement. You follow, feeling that it's not really following because you're going the same way, then when they at last reach their office you feel the clutch of a goodbye. It's normal. But how many times do you think the person being followed has been you?
Read Me is a seductive, haunting novel that holds a sinister mirror up to the ways in which we observe, judge, and influence people. Benedictus' prose commands and draws readers into the dark, manipulative mind of a serial stalker as he targets women across London, escalating his efforts until he settles on Frances -- a bright young professional whose career is set to take off -- whose life he proceeds to unravel from the inside, out.
A chilling rumination on power, manipulation, complicity, and anonymity, Read Me exposes just how vulnerable we are to the whims of others -- people we may not even know.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this chilling yet disappointing psychological thriller from Benedictus (The Afterparty), an unnamed narrator keeps a written record of his unusual hobby: stalking. When his aunt dies and leaves him a fortune, the narrator is given all the free time he needs to indulge in the stalking of random women in an unspecified city, spying on them via webcams and hidden microphones, as well as simply overhearing conversations. His one rule is not to become personally involved with any of his victims but he breaks that rule when he spots Frances, a beautiful young woman who works for a consulting firm. Frances has just been suspended because of an anonymous email accusing her of fraud and other misdeeds. The narrator takes it upon himself to mete out justice (or vengeance) on Frances's behalf where he thinks it necessary. Switching back and forth between the first and third persons, the narrative feels unnecessarily complicated. The narrator is appropriately a cipher, but Frances is so bland that it is difficult to understand the narrator's obsession with her. In the end, hampered by long-winded philosophical asides by the narrator, the novel doesn't work up enough suspense to be worthy of its premise.