- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 607 KB
- Print Length: 276 pages
- Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS; None edition (11 May 2019)
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B07KGMHYGR
Synopsis
Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone.
Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has.
When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing.
But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on.
Review
The Closer I Get by Paul Burston is a psychological thriller that focuses on harassment by social media. Tom Hunter is an author whose first novel propelled him to huge heights and instant fame. Evie Stokes is a fan of his book and meets him at a book signing and connects on social media. What follows finds Evie handed a restraining order and a suspended sentence. Divided into two parts, the events leading up tp the trial and the trial itself, and part two is the aftermath of the trial and how Paul and Evie try to move on. This is an intelligent thriller that is very relevant to today’s obsession of social media.
The Closer I Get is a character led book mainly focusing on Tom and Evie with only a few supporting characters. The story is narrated by Tom and Evie, and interestingly Tom in the third person, and Evie in the first person. The first person of Evie’s narration makes you feel more connected to her, her thoughts and feelings feel more personable than the distance felt by the third person narrative of Tom. As narrators, both Evie and Tom are unreliable, their stories are conflicting blurring the lines of truth and lies. It is unusual for both narrators to be unreliable, but as a literary device it is brilliant as it keeps you gripped and engaged until the final breathtaking conclusion.
Tom found immediate success with his first novel, but his second novel was not received well by the. critics. He is working on a new book but seeming to struggle, which he blames on the stalking by Evie and the stress of the trial. Post trial he moves away to write the book but his paranoia about Evie continues to rule his life, she is like an itch he needs to scratch. Tom does come across as arrogant in places, not caring about the feelings of others especially where his friend Emma is concerned, and if I’m totally honest I don’t think I really liked him. His nemesis Evie is an intelligent and well read character who is writing a book of her own. Her narrative is through journal entries that she writes at the suggestion of the therapist she has to see after the trial. Through these musings we see her version of what happened which differs to Tom’s, and puts doubt in the reader’s minds. Neither character come out of this well in my opinion, I didn’t really warm to either.
The Closer I Get takes a real look at harassment and ‘trolling’ on social media, how Twitter can be used as a platform to hound people and give access to those in the public eye; authors, actors, posters etc. The character driven plot, with neither Tom or Evie being credible, takes the reader inside their minds and guessing the truth until the final and unanticipated conclusion. An uncomfortable read in parts, this is an intelligent and compelling psychological thriller that I highly recommend.
I would like to thank Anne Cater and Orenda Books for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.
As always thank you for reading my review, if you liked it please share on social media.
