It would be easy to underestimate Chloe Sevre ... She's a freshman honor student, a legging-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. She spends her time on yogalates, frat parties and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her. Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study of psychopaths - students like herself who lack empathy and can't comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned ...
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It would be easy to underestimate Chloe Sevre ... She's a freshman honor student, a legging-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. She spends her time on yogalates, frat parties and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her. Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study of psychopaths - students like herself who lack empathy and can't comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires then to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements. When one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and Chloe goes from hunter to prey. As she races to identify the killer and put her own plan for revenge into action, she'll be forced to decide if she can trust and of her fellow psychopaths -- and everybody knows you should never trust a psychopath.
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'"I'm not like that" Chloe said, wide-eyed. "I'm like a good psychopath"'
Never Saw Me Coming is a great premise, told from the perspective of Chloe, a psychopath enrolled in a psychological experiment programme at her University. However, when people start dying it's up to her and the others in her programme to work out who is responsible - but who can she trust?
I enjoyed the unique perspective of this book, with the psychopath element it felt like you were unsure of the motives of any of the characters, no matter how much you thought you knew them. This kept me off-balance throughout the book although it also heavily sign-posted a big twist to come near the end. I also liked how the book switched perspectives between Chloe, Charles and Andre who are all in the programme, however I did find that it was quite hard to tell whose perspective the chapter was written in at the beginning of chapters as each of the narrative voices sounded very similar. I think there could have been a benefit to adding their name at the start of each chapter.
Although the book did keep me guessing I felt like it dragged a lot in the middle and could have done with a sharper edit to keep the pace high. As we got towards the end, I guessed the final twist a lot earlier than it revealed as well, although I do commend the author on a good idea for the twist. There's also a side-plot element which the whole book is leading up to (there's a count down timer at the top of each paragraph), but then when it finally happened I just felt that it was put on the backburner and forgotten about which was a little odd. As the story is set in a University there are some cringy expressions, a lot of uses of cliche phrases and some really badly written romance elements as well which I thought let down the book.
Overall, Never Saw Me Coming is a great premise, but let down by slow pacing issues and some odd narrative choices. Thank you to NetGalley & Random House UK, Vintage and Harvill Secker for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
