Book Review: "Watching Alice" by Sue Watson

Cheap thrillers may not be everyone's cup of tea but they're great to read if you're trying to fill a gap between things. Sue Watson's Watching Alice has been recommended to me quite a few times now and so, I thought I'd give it a go. About a woman named Alice who is separating from her terrible cheating and lying husband, Jason - she is practicing something with him called 'nesting' in which each parent lives in the house for a few days at a time so that the children get both of them. But that's not all for Alice. It's clear her husband wants her out of the picture and now, there's a mint green fiat continuously passing the house and unexplained windows being left open here and there. As her mother succumbs to the early signs of dementia, Alice must piece together what is happening when she's not around her children before it starts to happen whilst she's there too. The question is: who is watching Alice?

Alice has two children: Joshua and Ruby. In this situation, she hopes that they will pay attention to both parents and so have positive experiences instead of being children stuck in the middle of a bitter battle. This quickly falls apart as her daughter starts to suffer nightmares and her son starts to get angrier and angrier, lashing out often and distancing himself from her and her daughter. On top of this, Alice is on edge about someone who once spoke to her children in a coffee shop - someone she did not see but took off in the same mint green fiat that she has been seeing constantly. As Sue Watson weaves this mystery into the text we start to also find out bits and pieces to do with Alice's past and the fact that she cannot completely divorce her husband just yet for reasons that even her best friend, Martha, does not know. Something that happened a long, long time ago.

She has recently found out as well, that her husband lies about practically everything. He constantly leaves the children alone at night in order to go off to work and he has constantly cheated on her throughout their marriage. When Alice arrives to her turn with the children at home, she often finds the place in complete disarray which surprises Alice but doesn't shock her. When her husband denies having much to do with it, she doesn't believe him at all. When the cat goes missing, she doesn't believe that he doesn't know where she is either. Sue Watson does a fantastic job at making every character in Alice's life just as unreliable as the last but then again the secret that Alice is keeping from everyone makes her just as unreliable as well. It really is quite twisted.

Alice knows that in order to get this divorce settled, she will need her own income. She has a small interior design business and one day, out of nowhere, an old half-flame calls her wanting her assistance on a home that is already decorated. Alice is pretty suspicious when he finds that his partner is pregnant but also extremely upset. The question is about why she's so sad and ultimately, why her 'ex' hired her when he very much has disposable income enough to hire someone famous. All the while, her ex-husband is still making her feel like she's crazy for suspecting that someone is lurking around the house in the evening, peering into the windows. Unconvinced, Alice takes it upon herself to phone the police after it is found that there was someone in the house whilst she was there. Someone that wasn't supposed to be there. Between this person and one she thought to be long dead, there may be more lies in Alice's life than she's willing to confront.

This book was pretty dark in places and uses a whole host of hints and jabs to push us into misdirections. I loved the writing style because it comes from Alice's first person perspective but then again, we don't even know if we can trust her because she's not even telling us everything. It's a wild ride and if you like a twisted slow burn, then this is for you!

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