REVIEW: I Know You by Annabel Kantaria

I Know You by Annabel Kantaria

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Read: 20th September 2018

Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon

★★★★ 4.5 stars

#WhoCanYouTrust?

I KNOW YOU is an intruiging psychological thriller that predominantly revolves around the use of social media, and while there have been a few books in this genre centring on the topic, this one does it rather brilliantly. It shows us how we allow complete strangers to know almost every aspect of our lives without actually knowing anything about who is following us. It really makes you stop and think about just how much we share online.

I wasn't sure what I would think of it when I started as it is a bit of a slow burn to begin with - with Taylor being somewhat #DesperatelyAnnoying with her constant need to post absolutely everything online - but it does begin to build and hooks you in before you know it. It's not action-packed but it is rather compelling.

Taylor is the main protagonist and having recently moved from her native USA to the UK with her husband Jake, the story revolves around what has become her somewhat mundane life. She misses her family and friends back home, but eager to make new friends in Croydon, she joins a walking group where she meets Simon, a strange man and a loner who is the sole carer for his elderly father, and Anna, also new to the area and also expecting whose husband is away for months at a time. Trying hard to become Anna's new best friend, Taylor takes on (what I thought) the almost "stalker" persona that the internet so easily provides by searching her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - friending her immediately - and even googling her home address, mapping out the directions from her own house to Anna's door. When you hear it like that, it does sound rather creepy. But Taylor is desperate for friends, and her desperation really comes across in the early pages which I found a little irritating at times but then I realised that I am familiar with that same need. I meet a new friend, I search them on Facebook as well - not to be creepy but tokeep in touch. So I get it. Just when it is actually put down on paper (or Kindle) it really does look desperate.

However, Taylor has made a big move across the world away from what she knows to somewhere she doesn't know - in an effort to save her marriage. You see, shortly before the move Taylor discovered Jake had been cheating on her, so the move back to Jake's native UK was an attempt to help save their marriage. Added to that, Taylor is also pregnant with their first child. So it is a chance for new beginnings all round.

Soon after moving to the neighbourhood Taylor also meets exuberant Sarah from down the road and her rather snobbish friend Caroline, who she discovered went to primary school with her husband Jake. Given Jake's history Taylor begins to wonder just how well they knew each other and if she should be worried. The fact that Jake spends a lot of time away from home for work only adds to her growing worry. This only intensifies when Jake and Sarah start spending a lot of time together on the "pretense" of planning her birthday dinner. Then throughout the said dinner, Sarah drunkenly makes a continual play for Jake in front of the horrified guests, with Jake seemingly oblivious to her overt flirtations, everyone's discomfort and Taylor's humiliation. Is he having an affair with Sarah?

Then Simon starts to get creepy and turns up at her place with gifts for her baby. Isn't that just too weird? Anna doesn't like him from the off and tells Taylor so but Taylor feels sorry for him. Still, his job is a forensic hacker and he can find out anything about anyone online, so it's no mystery as to how he found Taylor's address.

Then Anna starts getting strange phone calls, and gifts being left at her door, and she begins to get the sense that she is being watched. One day she rings Taylor in a panic telling her that someone has been living in her shed. Taylor races around to support her friend, but upon inspection of the shed herself, she wonders if Anna isn't just imagining things being alone in her house all the time. She offers to have her come and stay with her for a while. It's that night that Taylor goes into labour and Anna stays with her throughout until the birth of her son. Sadly Jakes misses the whole event.

Taylor is thrilled to meet her newborn son, whom they name Joseph (Joe), but in the weeks after appears to suffer from post natal depression. Plans are made for her to take Joe to the US to meet her parents but they go awry when he and Anna disappear from the airport and Taylor begins to realise that maybe her friend's paranoia about someone watching her all this time was not just paranoia but very real.

Who has taken Anna and Joe? Where are they?

I KNOW YOU is mainly told from Taylor's persepctive throughout though every few chapters we are privy to the somewhat nasty thoughts of a mystery person, written in a kind of manifesto to Taylor which she is not yet privy to. But as the story unfolds we realise that someone is not who they seem. But who is this person? And how do they know her?

I love the way the story is written and how it all unfolds. The threat Taylor is under and the person watching via her social media. So who has it in for her? Although the "manifesto" of sorts that is also being written alongside the story, it doesn't indicate at first just who it refers to but I guess it is clear that the recipient of that rage and those words is in fact Taylor - but there are a number of candidates for that role as we try to work out just who it could possibly be. There is also an undertone that I clicked onto right away - that every player in the story is either expecting or maybe wanting a baby - with a couple having a tragic baby past. So it could be anyone...couldn't it?

So where does social media come into it, you say? While my review hasn't said much about it rest assured it does play a big part. Taylor lives her life through social media, hashtagging everything and everyone, to the point that Jake often referred to her need as some kind of addiction. The sense you get when reading the "alter chapters" is that this person has picked up everything about Taylor's life online, so that when it comes to the reveal near the end, Jake is mortified to discover just how much of their lives Taylor DID post online. Is nothing sacred? he screamed at her. And that is what role social media plays in society today. No, nothing is sacred anymore. Anything and everything is free game.

I honestly didn't know what I would think of this book but it turned out I really enjoyed it. I guessed a few bits along the way, and mis-guessed others, but that's half the fun of reading this genre. It is difficult NOT to give too much away because so much does take place.

I KNOW YOU is a slow burner to start with but when it picks up pace, it really picks it up. You won't want to put it down!

I was a little disappointed in the ending, but then again I asked myself, how would it have ended otherwise? With so much damage done, how could anyone pick themselves up after that? So I guess the ending was appropriate for this story, even if a little disappointing.

#HighlyRecommend!