Never Saw Me Coming

Chloe isn't your average college freshman. She's a psychopath. No, literally. She's attending college as part of a program with six other diagnosed psychopath students, designed to monitor their moods and feelings, and just maybe to help them learn some semblance of empathy for other people. The scholarship is nice and all, but Chloe has plans of her own – she's there to kill Will Bachman for a wrong done to her years ago.

The students aren't supposed to know each other. They're never supposed to meet. But when oen of them ends up dead, and then another, Chloe and two other students in the program work together to sort out who's doing the killing. Can they figure it out before the killer takes them out, too?

This was a fascinating concept for a book! Chloe is an engaging main character – sharp and funny, and always calculating how to turn any situation to her advantage. She's a psychopath, a “bad guy,” but she isn't. Sure, she wants to kill Will, but he did her wrong. In her mind, that justifies his death. If Chloe were a real person and I knew her, I suspect I'd find her mostly likeable, if coming off a bit of a mean girl sometimes.

Someone killing program students is an entirely different matter, though. That isn't acceptable, largely because Chloe values her own skin, and if she's dead, she can't take Will out.

Charles and Andre, the two program students working with Chloe to figure out who's behind the killings, are interesting as well. Three young people with the same diagnosis, yet very different in their backgrounds and personalities, their relationships, and how they present themselves. Their interactions are fascinating. Can they trust each other? Is one of them the killer? Who's lying? Who's not exactly lying, but maybe gaming the others a little?

And the ending. I'm not giving it away, but I didn't see it coming until it whapped me upside the head. I love books where I don't figure it out ages before the big reveal!

This was a unique take on the thriller, and a bang-up debut from Vera Kurian. Five nail-biting stars from me. Thanks to Netgalley and Park Row Books for an advance reader copy.