never saw me coming by vera kurian

i received a copy of never saw me coming from Harlequin, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Star Rating:

★★★★★

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never saw me coming is a one of a kind book. it was so fun to read, and so well thought out. never saw me coming follows a group of diagnosed psychopaths as they get hunted down by a serial killer. just that summary alone is what made me want to read this book.

i don’t have any prior knowledge about psychopaths, so i can’t comment on the accuracy of the portrayal, however i felt that the main characters were humanised well. there were some obvious differences between the psychopathic characters and the regular ones, but they weren’t portrayed as murderers. i liked how the author kept reinforcing the idea that these people can we high functioning “regular” people of society.

i only have 2 points that i felt worth acknowledging in regards to the negatives of never saw me coming. the first is that somewhere around the middle, the book began to drag. i think this is because there was a bit of a routine going on: college, party, research on who could be hunting them. i understand this is important, as it shows that they’re working hard on figuring out who the killer is, but it became so boring and tedious. luckily, this doesn’t last too long, about 10% or so. (i wish it was less but oh well).

and secondly, i felt that the ending was too quick. i was left with a few unanswered questions, mainly about the murders. never saw me coming has three murders before the “big” ending. two murders were under mysterious circumstances, and one we know who did it. the one that we know, got blamed on the killer despite the fact that it wasn’t them. because of this, i was left wondering: did the killer actually kill those other two or was it someone else (who just got lucky and managed to blame it on the killer?) i know i’m probably overthinking it, but you never know!

overall, i was pleasantly surprised by never saw me coming. as i’ve never read anything by this author, i had relatively low expectations. this is definitely the kind of book that i would recommend to anyone who likes a good mystery!