With My Little Eye: A Novel

We read “With My Little Eye” for our May book club pick. I had high hopes because I REALLY enjoyed “Never Have I Ever” but this book was terrible, what else can I say. The characters were horrific—either they were literally horrific or just so damn boring. There was one twist halfway through that I enjoyed but up until that point nothing had really happened and the story stalled until the end. The chapters with Honor, the main character’s daughter, narrating were hard to read. Her character is autistic and I could not relate to the gaming language or her dialogue and in my opinion, it read poorly- the nicknames and grammar used in those chapters were very distracting. Meribel, former actress (main character), is beyond immature for her age and for a parent. Her obsession with her ex is wildly exaggerated and in my opinion hindered what could have been a stronger or more realistic plot line. It was a big turn off not having one truly likable character. Marker Man, her stalker, draws sick pictures, burns beds and streaks feces and threats on walls (or at least we are led to believe he does)——yet Meribel justifies this behavior to a degree if it’s possibly her ex because she’s still hung up on him and might still “love him.” Just no… she has the maturity of an insect. And THE REVEAL—— (blank) is MM!!! No just no! Best line in the book “I bought the damn picture of us, riding it together! I had a picture of me and marker man riding down a log flume in my phone!” Only part of the book that I had my mouth open —meh. Also, you never find out who the stalker really is—what, if any is his connection to Meribel? Why was he obsessed with her? Why was he disconnected from reality? But most importantly, what the hell did his obsession have to do with the main character other than she was a former TV star? There is no explanation. Nothing. There are a couple small decent plot twists you won’t see coming but they were not enough to carry this story. Tip: If you do decide to read it, make sure you know the word “paladin” and are well versed in its historical context. And FYI I don’t want to read about bees again for a long while. Thank you William Morrow for my gifted finished copy in exchange for an honest review. I like the author but this was a massive disappointment.

This is such a tough book for me to rate and review. I found it very suspenseful as a stalker named Marker Man is obsessed with an actress from a TV sitcom she played 20 years ago. There are many characters in the book who are suspect of being the stalker, yet who can she really trust? I felt it was a bit too convoluted and it ended so abruptly right when things started really getting interesting, that left me disappointed overall in the book. So many unanswered questions and unless I hear there is a book 2 coming, then my rating stands as 2.5 ⭐️