... Someone Like Me, is a spooky, wrenching, exhilarating ghost story-cum-thriller that manages to put a fresh, almost science-fictional spin on its specters and spooks. It’s domestic in scope — no global armageddons or apocalypses here, no burning cities or plague-ridden communities — but still delivers the maximum freight of frights and consequences ... Having constructed this very sturdy stage for his supernatural action, Carey does not stint with the unpredictable chills and an implacable, unstoppable cascade of events leading to his climax — all of which is made sharper by juxtaposition with the drab and quotidian venue, a very solidly rendered Pittsburgh. Along the way there are many moments of tenderness and humor, leavened with pop culture riffs ... In the end, Carey’s novel joins the accomplished ranks of Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and Tim Powers’s Alternate Routes as a 21st-century rethinking of the eternal nature of ghosts.
...Carey explores a subtler infestation in Someone Like Me, juxtaposing two troubled women whose coping mechanisms have taken on lives of their own ... At its bloodiest and most baleful, Someone Like Me can’t quite work up the Gone Girl level of feminist shock it aims for...but its human-focused horror should be a draw for the Stranger Things crowd ... Someone Like Me plumbs familiar horror premises to find a few new ingredients for the old Hyde formula.
All four [central characters] are unique identities, all four share traumas and overlapping lives through time and space—or do they? Are they each simply an aspect of the others’ own personality, subconscious? One an id to the other’s ego? Carey is good at making his readers question this, with plenty of well timed reveals adding to the constant tension in this twisty yet controlled narrative ... But this isn’t just a thriller—it’s also a sensitive and smart commentary on domestic abuse and it’s traumatic aftermath ... Carey is clever, and so he leaves the answers to his readers.
Someone Like Me is certainly an interesting read, with many plot twists and turns, but it wasn’t what I expected after looking at the publisher’s brief blurb. The novel goes beyond that of someone with a multiple personality disorder, taking it to a whole new level. If you like science fiction mixed with drama and suspense, I am betting you will enjoy this story immensely. Although I wasn’t too satisfied with the conclusion, which I thought left some loose ends hanging, overall the novel is a winner and kept me intrigued right up until the final pages.
This intriguingly disturbing and brilliant novel has all the tendencies to make one go crazy ... With each page the suspense keeps accelerating and you cannot put the book down until you finish it. It’s a devouring tale of a single mother and a teenager, who you’d be rooting for from the very beginning. A complete psychological thriller, where the author messes with your head and makes you wonder about the demons that live within us.
Carey’s latest is an intense, supernaturally tinged psychological suspense story featuring alternating narration by two deeply troubled women, both sympathetic, if not trustworthy ... The anxiety-fueled story is filled with violence, darkness, and the ghosts living at the edge of reality ... Although Carey has his own built-in audience, this title is of a different breed; suggest it to fans of other tension-driven psychological thrillers that lap at the shore of horror.
...Carey, whose boundless imagination is in fine form, explores domestic violence, its aftermath, and the transformative power of love and hate with equal aplomb. Refreshingly, Carey resists the urge to instantly transform Liz from meek mom to brave avenger, but when Liz finally finds her footing, watch out, and the savvy but vulnerable Fran is a revelation ... This wonderfully strange and creepy tale is a thrilling, genre-defying treat.
A single mother battles the seduction of her dark side in this gripping and easily devoured novel from Carey ... Carey’s mastery of tension and diversity of voice will keep readers engaged until the well-earned ending, and his handling of mental illness is nuanced without romanticizing or sensationalizing trauma. This intense thriller shows human nature in all its grimness and glory.
