This book truly left me confused right from the very first page.

However, I simply couldn't bring myself to put it down! I managed to read it within a single day, and yet I'm still not entirely certain why I was so compelled.

The main character in the book is a woman who is having an affair with the father for whom she works as a nanny. She isn't overly likable, and yet I found myself constantly turning the pages.

I think my motivation was simply to figure out where the story was headed. There are all sorts of strange occurrences, such as dead people talking to her and showing up in her pictures (as she is a photographer).

And it turns out that she is having a premonition of what her personal hell would be like. Just like all of his novels, this one is a quick read. But I have to admit that I've never walked away from his books feeling as unfulfilled as I did with this particular one.

It's a strange combination of being unable to stop reading and yet feeling a sense of dissatisfaction at the end.

You've been cautioned to stay away from this book. The initial half was rather acceptable, but then it began to deteriorate. Nope!! It's not for me at all. I'm extremely disappointed.

The beginning of the book showed some promise. The story seemed to be developing in an interesting way, and I was quite engaged. However, as I got further into it, the plot started to become disjointed and the characters less believable.

It's really a pity because I had high hopes for this book. But unfortunately, it failed to deliver. I would not recommend it to others.

I was not at all impressed with this book.

It adhered to the typical chapterization style of James Patterson. However, it lacked the usual solidity of story that one expects from him.

The story seemed to lean more towards the supernatural thriller genre of Dean Koontz rather than Mr. Patterson's customary serial killer thriller.

Right from the first chapter, I could anticipate what the dream would lead to at the end of the book. I continuously hoped that it would surprise me, but unfortunately, all of the chapters pointed towards the same conclusion.

I simply could not stand the lead character. There ought to have been more background story provided to explain why she was as weak and obtuse as she was. This would have been necessary to establish some sort of connection or elicit sympathy from the audience. In general, I was highly annoyed with her and tended to speed read through most of her stupidity, which, as a result, meant that I speed read through most of the book.

Nevertheless, I did manage to finish it. But I was neither surprised nor satisfied with the ending. I will definitely not be re-reading this book nor recommending it to anyone in the adult age group. However, it might potentially be an okay read for those in the middle school/high school age group who have not yet come across this type of storyline in their reading.

I listened to the audiobook for this truly chilling read. It was supposed to be my audio book for the week during my drive to work. However, things didn't turn out that way. If there was ever a book that I wanted to rate more than 5 stars, this one would be it. At first, you simply go along with Kristin, day by day, as she wakes up screaming from her nightmare and her neighbor bangs on her door. You follow her through her daily routine, walking to work, taking pictures. It's the same monotonous pattern of daily living. And then, it happens. You are suddenly jerked down the rabbit hole with her and you just can't claw your way back up. You have to keep listening and listening, because you're left wondering what on earth is going on. Thanks to a set of wireless headphones, at 3:30 in the morning, I'm finally finished. I can finally take a deep breath and relax.

Anyone who has read my reviews before will be well aware that I am an enormous James Patterson fan. However, this particular book was truly dreadful.

I suspect that it was primarily written by the co-author because it lacked any clear direction. There was no explanation provided as to why the events were unfolding the way they did, and everything seemed rather far-fetched.

When I finally reached the end, the explanation was simply ridiculous. With a James Patterson book, one anticipates a thrilling story, and the blurb on the back of this book did not give me any indication that it would be any different. What I received instead was a story that either involved the main character being insane or the possibility of supernatural interference. Neither of these scenarios was what I expected or desired from a James Patterson novel.

If you are a fan of Patterson, I would recommend leaving this book alone. If you are not a fan, I suggest reading something else by him because he is truly great. However, if you were to read this book first, you would likely not want to pick up another one of his works.

Overall, this book was a huge disappointment.

*** WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS ****

This is one of those books that leaves me rather conflicted. On one hand, it presents a cool story with a lot of potential. There are elements that draw you in and make you curious about what will happen next. However, there was just something about it that really bothered me. Maybe it was the numerous unanswered questions, or perhaps more accurately, my "WTF" questions.

Penleigh hires a private detective to determine if her husband is cheating, and lo and behold, he is - with the nanny, Kristen. But instead of reacting in a more typical way like screaming, yelling, or making sarcastic comments, Penleigh decides to set Kristen up on a blind date with the very guy she herself is cheating with. Seriously? This whole scenario just seemed so far-fetched and unrealistic.

Another aspect that left me scratching my head was the glitch in some of her photographs. Why were only certain people glitchy? This was never properly explained to my satisfaction. In fact, it was hardly explained at all. The picture of her lover showed him sprawled out dead on the floor, not transparent like the others. And the fact that she didn't take that picture and it was supposedly taken by the camera on its own added to the mystery. Kristen sought the help of a camera expert, even going to his house, but the whole glitch issue was quickly brushed aside when the guy's mother started calling her the devil. She had to flee, and we never hear from the camera expert again.

Kristen also has her own set of odd behaviors. She's good at taking pictures but makes some really bad decisions. She moves to the big city and may have been misled, but after several years there, her friends have never met the people she works for? Not even once? And while she won't let her super-rich boyfriend get her a better apartment or vehicle, she's okay with him giving her a super-expensive diamond and sapphire bracelet.

I usually have a good ability to figure out the ending of a story, and this book was no exception. It didn't pose much of a challenge in that regard. Despite my somewhat negative comments, I did actually enjoy the story to a certain extent. However, it didn't leave me with that "wow, that was amazing" feeling. I listened to the audiobook version read by Ilyana Kadushin, and I must say I love her voice. I think the story had the potential to take a very different and more exciting path, with a better ending that didn't just wrap everything up neatly with a pretty bow. The whole "This girl is alive... she winked at me" thing at the end felt a bit too contrived and unexpected in a not-so-good way.

Why I Oughta...

James Patterson, oh James Patterson. You and your airport novels with their rather lackluster titles. Can't even pen a book on your own without collaborating with some unknown douchebag. It's always "James Patterson featuring some nobody you've never heard of". And then there are the apologists who say, "Well Patterson's just a bit of harmless fluff. Good for beach reading." What the hell is this "Beach Reading" nonsense anyway? Did someone make a rule that if you take a book to the beach, it has to be a total waste of time? Do you have to be in the rainy slums of London to enjoy Dickens, and only tolerate the likes of Di Morrissey and Danielle Steele on vacation? Since when did the beach become so uninspiring?

I would never be caught dead reading a James Patterson book, especially not at the beach with a majestic view of golden sands and an endless blue sea. Even if the mafia pissed me off and shot me with adrenaline before burying me alive, but had the decency to stop at the gas station and buy me the new Alex Cross novel, I'd say, "Don't they have Dostoevsky or anything? No? I'll pass then."

The very sight of this lackluster offering from Patterson really gets under my skin. And it's not like I'm some hipster. Hell, my second favorite film is Forrest Gump and I liked Spiderman 3. You don't get more un-hipster than that. But let's get to the review. I actually read this months ago, but the review I initially wrote was terrible because I was so angry at not being able to tear the book to shreds. I borrowed it from the library, you see. It was like when I read 50 Shades Of Grey; I stupidly agreed to give it to someone after I finished.
Similar to 50 Shades, I went into this not knowing how poorly regarded it was. I'd never read anything by Patterson before and was naïve enough to think that someone as popular as him must be good. Let's delve into what, until 2019, was the worst book I'd ever read.
For years I've tried to put it behind me, but it keeps coming back in my dreams. My wife is at her wits' end. She can't handle my tears and random outbursts anymore. My own damn son won't speak to me. Apparently, he told my grandkids I was killed in a bus accident because I'm too "unstable" to be around them now. I have only one option left. I must confront this trauma; grab it by the scruff and throttle it for every annoyance it put me through.
Instead of heeding Patterson's chilling title, I was persuaded by the deceptive critic's quote on the back-flap: "His most haunting book to date". I swear, if I ever get my hands on whoever wrote that. I mean, "haunting" in comparison to what? Harry Potter? Scary face masks on Halloween? To say this book is anywhere near frightening is more of a lie than someone coming back from a hang-gliding trip in The Philippines and saying they had a good time.
Before I get into what really hurt this book, I want to take a moment to explain how laughable its attempts to be scary are. I recall there being - count them - two attempts to scare the reader. Yet according to the asshole who designed the cover, "Fear is just the beginning". The first "scary part" is when Kristen - the (If you wink one more fucking time!!) protagonist in this train wreck - gets a late-night phone-call. When she answers, she hears herself crying hysterically on the other end. Jesus Christ, that's creepy!! And I'm not being sarcastic here. The idea is good. It should have been creepy. But Patterson's abysmal handling of it ruins any disconcertment the reader is meant to feel. You know those people whose hands have turned into tree bark? Well, Google it. Then imagine one of them giving you a hand-job. They would still elicit a better climax than Patterson could with this book. What do I mean? Well, consider how Kristen responds to this chilling occurrence. All she does is hang up and go to bed.
Does she question what just happened? Does she break down in the corner, phone her parents, and blubber about how she's losing her mind? Does she even leave the bathroom light on when she goes to bed? Nah, she just shrugs it off and hits the sack. Goodnight.
The only other apparently scary part is when Kristen discovers her cupboard is full of rats. Dirty, stinking, infectious rats!! Oh my, I shall faint with terror … That's it though. He doesn't bother describing them. He makes no attempt at evocative imagery. He relies, not cleverly, but lazily on the reader's own imagination. And look here: I'm not saying this tactic is bad. It can be remarkably effective when done well. But this isn't Jaws, and Patterson ain't Stephen Spielberg. Jaws provides you with all sorts of ominous suggestions that get under your skin and play with your mind. Patterson's book is more like having the viewer walk into the cinema, stare at a blank screen for two hours and then be told the movie was fantastic, they just have no imagination. This is the "Master of the Suspense” and yet he relies here on his readers being as squeamish as a girl who screams at spiders in the corner of the ceiling. Mr Patterson doesn't need to bother catering to our imaginations with grotesque imagery or vivid language. Nah, the mere mention of rats is enough to make my blood freeze.
Now to the protagonist … There are certain women out there that make me thankful for the aspiring Patrick Batemans our iniquitous culture is breeding. And I would not have hated this book half as much if it weren't for having to put up with the most irritating, shallow and murderable protagonist I think has ever been conceived. Kristen works as a maid for a rich married woman, Penley Turnbull - who is also the villain, and it couldn't have been any more obvious. Kristen spends the majority of this story bitching about how her employer treats her like an employee. Get this, she tells her maid what to do and throws fits when she turns up hours late. Pretty wrong if you ask me. And never mind that said mistreated maid is having sex with her employer's husband. She also stalks him when he takes his family (children, yeah) into the countryside. And while her life is falling apart due to supernatural forces, she instead focuses on detaching the kids emotionally from their mother. Plus she wants the husband to ditch her. Then, finally, Kristen has the nerve to judge Penley when she catches her having an affair. We are supposed to hate Penley for cheating on her husband. Yet the do-no-wrong protagonist has been doing the very same thing.
So yeah. Just about every page of this book made me wish I could jump inside and give Kristen something permanent to complain about. And it didn't help that the book was written in Kristen's first-person perspective. If Patterson wanted to provide an Annoying Cunt of a Girlfriend simulator, he did an incredible job. But that doesn't remove the crease from my forehead. This book read more like a text-message bitch-fest between two girls after they've had a few - with as much emotional depth and relatability to boot.
I could write an entire essay on what a terrible character Kristen was. But the word limit for this review is nearing, and there's so much more I want to say. Equally as grinding was the "forbidden" romance between Kristen and Michael Turnbull. They fuck each other pretty regularly in this book. In fact, just about the only thing they do together is pant and moan and dote over how much they love each other. But where's the evidence? Patterson never allows any chemistry between these two. There's this one part when Kristen finally confides in him - tells him all the insane things that are happening. She finds and interrupts him during an important business dinner … only to spread her legs in the backseat of his car.
"Was there something you wanted to tell me, sweetheart?" "Not anymore, big boy". She winked at him voluptuously. There are about two things we learn about Michael. 1) He has a large penis. 2) He's a fucking douchebag. And Lord knows we need more of them.
Oh, that reminds me!! There was this other part as well!! One morning, when Kristen is stuck doing Penley's laundry (like, puh-lease, this is sooo condescending), Michael sneaks up on her and fucks her from behind. They can still hear the clinking of Penley's spoon as she eats her cereal in the kitchen. And then the kids - (just the cutest clichés ever!!) - start calling for her. And after Michael's done with her, he slips back into the kitchen with a naughty grin on his face, the smell of sex on his slimy cock and Kristen cries "I'm coming"!!! It really is beyond amazing that Patterson would use this pun. It's so old, it's not funny, it's not sexy, and in fact, coming from him, a dirty old man that he is, it's really rather disgusting. The reader needs to feel at least some affinity for the characters in a story like this, otherwise they won't give a damn what happened to them. Constantly having them screw each other with no emotional development just puts you off after a while.
And, well, look … I really have to end this review. There's a lot more I wanted to say. But I've used up all my characters. Goodreads won't let me. All I can really say is that this book not only disappointed me but infuriated me with its almost remarkable ability to fuck up every single thing it tried to do. In my reviews, I often resort to nit-picking because I'm not smart enough to notice the deeper issues. And if I do, I'm just not clever enough to point them out as potently as most reviewers on this site can. But, thanks to this book, I've finally found something that demonstrates nearly every way in which a book can suck. Yet seeing the bar dropped this low is not really something to be thankful for. I hated it so much I even hated hating it.
Seeing as I have to finish off now, I'm just going to straight-out list some smaller things I remember finding very annoying. I just can't rest until I've pointed them out. * Her psychiatrist smokes a pipe. And are we really to believe that a professional such as him would throw a strop in front of a patient just because they stopped coming? * Adding to the list of times Patterson throws something totally random and stupid at us, what was with that part when the blonde guy approaches her in the nightclub, says “you’ve been warned” then fucks off into the night? No explanation. No context. No real payoff. You can't help but wonder if the co-writer was actually Tommy Wiseau. * Penley's stout and pompous turpitude is so absurdly portrayed, she comes off more like Michael's mother than his wife. She's basically Cruella Deville. * Why does Kristen keep running away from that detective? Stop being a fucking idiot and start behaving like an adult. * The happy ending was sickening and predictable. This book might have found at least some redemption in having Kristen fed to ants or something.
FOR THE END OF THE REVIEW, CLICK HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/897095588

Wow, after reading the reviews on this book, I'm truly shocked!

I really had an amazing time reading this book. I devoured it in just a few hours and simply couldn't put it down! However, it seems that everyone else has a different opinion. Many people were disappointed with the ending, but I absolutely loved it. It made me think deeply and allowed me to solve some of the mysteries on my own. I'm in a dilemma when it comes to reading reviews because there are so many people who just give away the entire story and how it ends. The last book I read, I had a hard time getting through because I already knew the ending.

Anyways, I like James Patterson, but it's been a while since I read any of his books. This one, though, I really adored. It had a unique charm and kept me engaged from start to finish. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery or thriller.

I really hate to have to say this, but this particular book barely deserves a single star. It's truly astonishing that Patterson would allow this work to be put out on the shelves for the public to purchase.

To all of you die-hard James Patterson fans out there, I would highly recommend that you skip this one. There are so many other amazing books by him that are well worth your time and money.

This particular offering just doesn't measure up to the high standards that we have come to expect from this talented author. Save your hard-earned cash and wait for his next great release.

Don't waste your time on something that is clearly not up to par. Trust me, you'll be much happier in the long run if you do.

I sat down after work today to read this book. It was a moment of relaxation and escape for me. Little did I know that I would be completely engrossed in its pages. As the hours ticked by, I found myself unable to put the book down. Before I knew it, it was now 1 am and I had finished it. This truly is a well-written novel. The author has crafted a story that is both captivating and engaging from start to finish. The characters are vividly drawn, and the plot is full of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. The finish is especially powerful, leaving you with a sense of satisfaction and a longing for more. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a great read.

This particular book truly had me hooked.

It was so engaging that I found myself reading it quite rapidly, despite the fact that I was simultaneously reading several other books.

I decided to give it four stars. The reason for this rating is that, to me, the ending seemed to be a bit abrupt.

There were a couple of questions that I really would have liked to have had answered.

It felt as if the story could have been developed a little more in order to provide a more satisfying conclusion.

However, overall, the book was still very enjoyable and held my attention throughout.

I would recommend it to others who are looking for an interesting read.

Despite the slightly disappointing ending, the rest of the book was well-written and full of interesting characters and plot twists.

It was definitely a book that I will remember for some time.

From a blog post I penned back in 2007:

If you find yourself anticipating "You've Been Warned" by James Patterson and Howard Roughan to be a run-of-the-mill Patterson offering, you're bound to be let down.

Certainly, it features short chapters and a first-person narrative. However, beyond that, it deviates significantly from what one might expect.

The tale centers around a young woman in the vibrant city of New York. She harbors secrets from both her past and present. She has obsessions with her camera and her married boyfriend. Additionally, she experiences severe nightmares and claims to see dead people. For the most part, it's supernatural drivel, and the so-called "surprise" ending fails to truly astonish.

Fortunately, it was a relatively quick read. Nevertheless, I must admit that I could have much more happily dedicated my time to something more productive and enjoyable.