In the mood for a book that’s dark and binge-worthy? You’ve come to the right place. In her stellar sophomore suspense novel, queen of the plot twist Alice Feeney delivers a genuine nail-biter .... I Know Who You Are is a psychological thriller that pushes boundaries and delivers a truly twisted reading experience; it’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’re up for a suspense novel with an edge, it will be right up your alley ... Feeney has a dark imagination, and she pulls no punches in her sophomore thriller. What begins innocently enough twists and turns into something altogether shocking and utterly addictive.
Bouncing between Aimee now and Aimee growing up in the late 1980s, readers slowly learn what made Aimee who she is and how she became a star actress. Author Alice Feeney takes us inside young Aimee’s head, experiencing the five-year-old’s fear and confusion, revulsion and acceptance ... The switchbacks in I Know Who You Are will almost make you dizzy, but the ride is worth it.
Either Alice Feeney is messing with us, or the conventions of the Girl/Woman subgenre of unreliable-narrator thrillers is so deeply ingrained that she can't help dropping breadcrumbs ... Feeney knows how to keep the pages of this brisk read turning, with a cliffhanger at the end of almost every chapter, and she can insert 10 new twists faster than you can say, 'Roger Ackroyd.' True, plausibility is not her strong suit, but maybe Know Who You Are is a promise that she'll work on that, since its last sentence is 'I never make the same mistake twice.'
I thought I knew where this one was going, and I had no idea ... The big twist is something right out of Psycho, and not what you’d call subtle. You’ll be dying to know just what the heck is going on. It’s also hard not to root for Aimee, who seems to be living in a waking nightmare. You’ll want to allow some time for this one because you won’t want to put it down.
The ending isn’t a just twist, it's a triple axel Feeney fails to stick. Instead of shouting 'A-ha!' when the strange strands of the plot are knitted together, the reader is more likely to say 'Whaaa?' and then maybe 'Ew.' No doubt, Feeney has the storytelling and pacing skills to keep a reader paging through to see what comes next. It's just "what comes next" includes incest, child abuse and marital rape, and a story I didn't care to read.
Feeney displays her linguistic flair in the chapters devoted to her heroine’s harrowing early years, but this affecting backstory seems part of a different, better novel than the present-day story with its cardboard characters on a plot-powered roller coaster. The action speeds toward a finale that’s about as subtle as an ax. Fans of over-the-top psychological thrillers will be satisfied.
