They’re Watching You
“Remington’s figure is hunched on the side of the pool. His look pleads, saying what he can’t shout in front of the cameras.”
Summary
Maren's life is already busy. She plays three sports, goes to school, and constantly studies to ensure her grades are good enough for her scholarship. But when her roommate and best friend Polly goes missing after months of distance, Maren adds something else to her plate: finding Polly. In the months leading up to Polly's disappearance she had been befriended by Annabelle, a popular, devilishly clever girl who runs the school chess club. When Polly joins the club, she begins to distance herself from Maren, and suddenly can afford expensive new clothes, is out all night, and ignores her former best friend. Yet when Maren searches through Polly's things, she discovers that the chess club isn't what it seems --it's a secret society.
Maren schemes her way into the Gamemaster's Society, desperate to find clues to Polly despite the costs. The Society meets at night past curfew, and breaks nearly every rule the school has in place, but the school doesn't seem to care. Even sketchier, each meeting centers around a game, where the consequences are far too dire, and the members of the Society seemingly have boundless power: At initiation Maren must solve clues to determine if she drinks poison; letters appear in her dorm room while she's sleeping; she misses an exam but scores a 100%. The society members could get away with murder, and no one would care.
Already suspicious of the Society and it's members, Maren teams up with her chemistry lab partner Gavin, who joined before her but for a good cause, and Remington, a fellow initiate who is looking for his missing ex-girlfriend Jane. Convinced that Annabelle and the Society are hiding Polly somewhere deep in the catacombs where the group meets every night, Maren is determined to move up the Society ranks to earn more clues about her friend, hopefully before it's too late.
But as she continues to win, Maren sees how far the Society stretches. What she once saw as Ivy League connections turns into breakthrough medical experiments, money, get-out-of-jail-free cards, fame, and more power than a person could handle. Suddenly, with shadows lurking in every corner, and tricks down everyone's sleeves, Maren doesn't know who to trust, or what to believe. The Gamemaster's Society is far more than a chess club--it's a deadly cult, and Maren only has so much time before they get to her too.
Thoughts
While I normally love any book that deals with the occult and dark academia, there was something about They're Watching You that didn't click for me. I'm a big fan of an unreliable narrator, but in this case, it wasn't Maren who was unreliable, it was everyone else, which is necessary to a certain extent, but by the end of the book, I was tired of constantly wondering if Maren should trust Gavin or Remington.
I also found the pacing to be all over the place. The meetings take place at night, so of course most of the book does as well, but I never felt like I had the right timeline. Maren never seemed to attend classes, and I wasn't sure if this book took places over months or mere days. Furthermore, with nearly every scene taking place in the catacombs, it was hard to keep track of the clues she had earned or the games she had played, since they all were described the same way.
Nevertheless, I love a creepy setting, and did enjoy the use of catacombs under the school as a meeting place. I do wish they were used more sparingly, as sometimes the endless maze of rooms and tunnels could be used as a deus ex machina, but overall, the setting of a remote private school and dark, cold passageways was a plus.
I liked Maren as a character, but wanted more development from her. We know that she's athletic, on a scholarship, and that Polly was her best friend, but throughout the book we don't really learn anything else about her. Her dad is mentioned once in reference to his company not bringing in as much money as anticipated, and I wanted more from that. Or when Maren refused to give up on Polly, I wanted more about what that relationship meant to her as a person, not just the same stories and reminiscing over and over again. I also found the love triangle of untrustworthiness to become very old very quick. Gavin and Remington were both characters that could be perceived as sketchy or trustworthy an equal amount of times, and it frustrated me to not know anything more about them. In the end though, I did appreciate where Ichaso took the relationship.
Overall
Of all the young adult thrillers I have read, this isn't my favorite, but it wasn't a bad read at all. The classic young adult mystery beats were hit--it was creepy, culty, and definitely had a Big Brother vibe. Add in the ever-present love triangle trope mixed with the time constraints of impending death, and you have a great novel on your hands. I look forward to seeing what Ichaso writes in the future.
My rating: 3/5
Goodreads Average: 3.87/5
Information
They're Watching You by Chelsea Ichaso (Sourcebooks Fire)
Publication Date: January 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781728251066
Paperback: $10.99