Things We Have in Common, by Tasha Kavanagh. Mira, 2017

When Yasmin Laksaris’s father died five years previous to the story, her life spiraled out of control. We are given no clue as to what her life was like previous to this, other than that she and her father were close. Since then, food has become her only source of comfort. Her mother is not close to her and has remarried, to a man who seems to barely tolerate Yasmin. Now she’s obese, and the students, teachers, and principle of her school all treat her like a total outcast. She takes endless taunting. When her not very subtle stalkerish behavior towards the most popular girl in school becomes obvious, the taunting gets even more vicious. But it doesn’t stop her from endlessly watching pretty, blonde, Alice.

Then one day she discovers that she’s not the only one watching Alice. Sitting outside during lunch, she notices that a man walking a dog is watching Alice intently. She intuits somehow that this man means harm to Alice. But rather than reporting the man to the school, she decides to figure out who he is. Because she doesn’t want to stop him from abducting Alice; she wants to be the one who rescues Alice once she’s abducted, figuring that Alice will then return her love. So Yasmin plays junior detective, and, amazingly, finds the man. She manages to work her way into his life- which he responds to rather oddly- and when Alice really does go missing, Yasmin turns her stalking to him.

The author has captured the feelings of a teen outcast pretty well. She’s so desperate for affection that even the slightest imagined (and she imagines a LOT- she is, in fact, delusional) favor shown by the man changes her life. The book is written as if Yasmin is telling the story to the man, and it gives us a deep look into her mind. Yasmin is, quite frankly, not a very sympathetic character. In some ways, she is- anyone bullied as much as she is would be- but she has a very warped mind. The story is built such that you could see it going in several directions. I couldn’t put the book down, dying to see which way it would go. The end is positively Hitchcockian. 

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Moon, by James Herbert. New American Library, 1985

Jon Childes has found a peaceful life. He lives on one of the Channel Islands, working at three different schools teaching computer science. His ex-wife and daughter live in England, but he’s found a new relationship with a fellow teacher, Amy Sebire. He hopes the horror from his past is gone forever.

But it’s not. Once again, the psychic visions are occurring. Once again, he’s made a connection with the mind of a vicious murderer. When this happened before, Childes was able to convince a police detective that he was for real, and together they caught the killer. The visions and the stress they caused were the cause of his marriage collapsing. This time, not only is he seeing what the murderer is doing, but the killer is aware of Childes, too. And he wants to hurt him. He is making his way closer and closer to Childes, hurting the people he cares about.

There is an air of constant menace to this book. Despite a good number of scenes taking place in daytime, I felt it was always dark. The atmosphere was very well done. Sadly, I did not much like Childes, and the women in the story are not fleshed out at all- his ex-wife is frankly unbelievable. Good for a dark read but not great. 

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The Pleasures of Men, by Kate Williams. Hyperion 2012

Set in 1840’s London, ‘The Pleasures of Men’ tells the tale of orphaned nineteen year old Catherine Sorgeiul after she is taken in by her uncle. Uncle lives in genteel poverty amidst books and anthropological artifacts. Encouraged to not think about the tragedies of her past that led her to be institutionalized for a time, but given nothing to do that interests her, she becomes obsessed with the Man of Crows, a serial killer who is targeting young women. To try and get a handle on how he thinks, she begins to write about the victims without realizing that she is drawing bad intentions to herself. Soon she finds herself unable to trust anyone.

The atmosphere is wonderfully created- the heat of the city in summer, the claustrophobic life Catherine lives, the fear, and the uncertainty as to what is real and what isn’t – and made me feel like I was there. It was murky and shadowy, as I imagine Catherine’s mind must have been. As more and more peculiar discoveries are made that don’t seem to fit together quite right, the mystery deepens instead of being solved.

However, the story changes point of view and point in time frequently, from Catherine to the several girls who are murdered to, finally, the murderer. This made it very hard to follow. Most of the characters were poorly developed; perhaps it was to allow us to see that Catherine wasn’t really interested in them and just saw their surface, but it made it hard for me to care about them. Catherine herself, despite her situation, was hard to care for. The story seemed to lack a clear focus, and in the end it left me disappointed.