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I love Alyssa Cole. But I'm a New Yorker and I reserve the right to be persnickety about literary representations of New York. Taking on Brooklyn as your muse is no small thing to commit to, and this particular Brooklyn felt very...off. Earlier this year I read and loved N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became. The comparisons between When No One Is Watching and The City We Became are unavoidable for me because they're so thematically similar, but the latter is executed much more cleverly. Jemisin dep...
Hmmm. I understand what the author was going for here, a gentrification based take on "Get Out," but the pacing is off. The ending happens all at once and is so wild and then it's the end. This had a lot of potential. Great premise. Lots of interesting Brooklyn/NY history. Missteps in execution.
fucking brilliant
"People bury the parts of history they don't like, pave it over like African cemeteries beneath Manhattan skyscrapers. Nothing stays buried in this city, though."When No One Is Watching is an expertly crafted thriller that is as informative as it is entertaining. It's not easy for an author to unpack a large amount of American history in a thriller, but that's precisely what Cole has done here. What begins as a slow burning mystery eventually converts to a heart-pounding reveal, and while I thin...
EDITED TO ADD: To everyone, but especially white folks - if you are looking for a good book to read about what's going on in our country now with race and white violence, this is an excellent read. Though it takes the form of a suspense novel, and is extremely fun to read, it also does a fantastic job of letting white readers know what it is like for people of color to be targeted and to feel constantly unsafe. In addition to being a great thriller read, this book is educational and I learned a
**4.5-stars rounded up**Needing a distraction from the stressors of everyday life, Sydney Green, decides to take one of the over-priced historic walking tours of her neighborhood in Brooklyn.Sydney is a bit of a history buff and is curious to see what the tour will cover. She quickly realizes that the community she has lived in for her entire life isn't represented in the discussion.It's hard to understand the history of a place while simultaneously ignoring the people who have lived there for g...
3.5 stars. I LOVED the premise of this story and was so ready to rate it 4 or even 5 stars in the first 1/3 of the book. I love it when thrillers incorporate real world issues and social injustice, and I thought Cole’s approach to this genre was especially unique because it’s set up like a contemporary rom-com with very likable leading characters that you want to root for. I think the juxtaposition of having a setting that feels like a rom-com but is actually a thriller is a super interesting dy...
Be sure to visit Bantering Books to read all my latest reviews.I have never read a novel quite like Alyssa Cole’s, When No One is Watching.Primarily marketed as a thriller, it has, for the most part, all the prerequisite tension, psychological suspense, and unexpected twists it needs to fit that bill. But alongside all that lies a fierce examination of institutional racism and gentrification in contemporary society. Not to mention a fascinating history lesson, to boot. It sounds like a lot to tr...
The craziest thing about this book? Is that this shit could actually happen. Usually when i read thrillers i’m like “okay this could happen” but like it’ll have to be like the craziest thing ever but this book? This shit DOES happen. I enjoyed this book because it brought out the right kind of anger, frustration and fear. There were points where the characters were mircoaggressive and I wanted to put it down so bad but I literally could not put this book down. I think the pacing was really slow
“People bury the parts of history they don't like, pave it over like African cemeteries beneath Manhattan skyscrapers.”Sydney returns home to Brooklyn after her divorce to take care of her sickly mother. Her beloved neighbourhood has changed and it seems like everything she loved about Brooklyn is disappearing - and fast. With the help of her new neighbour Theo, Sydney researches into the history of the neighbourhood for a historic tour she's planning. However, the more she learns, the more para...
2.5*You ever get the feeling you read a different book than anyone else?🤷🏻♀️. I saw such great reviews for this book. I’d been looking forward to it for so long. But…then I listened to it.This book had a bit of an identity crisis. This book was touted as a thriller. Hmmm…. but it didn’t come off as one at least till the end (sort of).I felt like I was listening to three books all smooshed together into one. And well…. that never works well. We start with Sydney Green who lives in Brooklyn keepi...
A well-executed thriller and a very timely read all in one! Sydney’s predominately Black neighborhood in Brooklyn is going through gentrification. Her neighbors are moving out of their houses with no notice and no goodbye, and white families are moving in. Anxious to make sure everyone knows the roots of the community she’s almost always lived in, Sydney is researching information for a walking tour she’ll host as part of the upcoming block party on her street. Her new, white neighbor, Theo, is
This was going to be a four star book until I got to the ending, more about that later.I have never read this author before and I was interested in where she would go with this premise. The blurb for this book already tells a large part of the first half of the book. “ Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, for sale signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are...
