At the very least, the opening of You’re Next starts off in a terrifying way. Here is Mike Wingate, 4 years old, who is about to abandoned by his father. In the readers mind, you have to say to yourself that there is no excuse for a parent to do this yet this is the opening scene and you’re left to wonder what is going to happen to Mike as a result of this.
From there, the point of view shifts from Mike being a family man with a wife and daughter to his days in an orphanage where his only friend was Shep. The story moves along with Mike having problems with his job as head of a construction company that could put him out of business.
If that isn’t bad enough, he is starting to run into shady characters who seem as broken as he is along with his friend, Shep. The mystery is where these characters came from and why are they after Mike and his family. The answers aren’t easy and the threats seem not only violent but chilling at times with text messages of You’re Next to his cell phone.
As far as the characters are concerned, they were memorable. They weren’t ordinary characters. You could say that they were broken people who dealt with some physical problems. I thought that brought the characters out further and made this story even more unique.
This was a very hard book to put down. The main reason was the characters, especially the shady characters who were after Mike. Being that they were evil also since they wanted to kill him and his family, that just brought out the suspense even more, making me wonder what he could have possibly done to have these people come after him.
I was surprised by the reason once it came out. Some people who reviewed this book on Amazon didn’t seem to think that it was believable. I would say that it was not only believable but it seemed like the author had done some research on this as well. The story kept moving for me and it was even harder for me to put the book down since all this lead to a very unpredictable and fascinating ending.
It was a long time since I read Gregg Hurwitz. I really enjoyed They’re Watching. While that was a great psychological thriller, I have to say that You’re Next was just as good if not better. Happy to say that this was one of the best books I read this year and I would give it more than five stars. Can’t wait to read more of Gregg’s books.
Ron Hummer
No comments:
Post a Comment