When No One is Watching

The premise and message Alyssa Cole talks about is great, but I am not convinced by the execution. Half of the book is slow exposition, ballooned by numerous background neighborhood characters that I had a hard time keeping track of (I wonder if that is more a commentary of me though, an outsider peeking into a neighborhood that isn't mine, not getting to truly know about these other people beyond the main protagonists? Hmm).

When Sydney and Theo finally connect the dots with the bad guys, I became so confused because I felt like it was almost... obvious that everything is connected to the Big Bad. Like didn't Sydney already uncover this before? Then it became even more confusing about what Sydney and Theo already knew vs. what they were discovering in their research. Also, the ending where the neighbor reveals he's kinda known all along there were other incidents like this in other cities... why didn't he mention this before? I don't know, everything to me started to fall apart after the community garden and felt like they turned into convenient plot points to reach the ending, which was just a bizarre, unrealistic, and out of place action movie. The villains felt so cartoonishly evil, the “resolution” was so abrupt and left me wondering about the consequences. Also kind of ridiculous is how did the neighbors know where and how to find them? It was just too convenient that the entire neighborhood seemingly had a “backup plan” to find and save them in the hospital.

I was fine with the dual perspectives at first, but wanted to throw the book at the wall because of Sydney's doubts towards Theo during the last 1/3. It would have been a bigger satisfying thriller if the book was told entirely in Sydney's perspective as we build on her suspicions and distrust. As readers, we sorta trust Theo because we know his thoughts; he hasn't been lying or disingenuous so far, and it wouldn't fit if it was suddenly revealed that he's a lying first POV narrator (but this is a thriller, any twist could happen). But then seeing the whiplash of emotions in Sydney's perspective, it was like come on... he's on your side.

As for the writing... I guess it's just not my taste, like I don't need all these extraneous details that feel like overstimulation... do I need to know about the ugly sandals this guy is wearing? Not really.

The setup is great, the message is great, but the book feels a little ridiculous.