She spends much of the book not sure if she’s right, not sure if she’s overreacting, and yet cognizant that it was her partner’s behavior that has made it such that she doesn’t trust herself. Sydney is recovering from a marriage where her partner gaslit her, abusing her constantly and profoundly. The community is in the beginning stages of gentrification and to the recently divorced Sydney seeking solace in the place of her childhood, these changes are not just frustrating, they are incredibly destabilizing. Sydney is a Black woman newly returned to the Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up, both to recover from an abusive marriage and to care for her ill mother. When No One is Watching is an engaging mystery thriller that quickly escalates as it seeks to answer two seemingly unrelated questions: what is the history of Sydney’s childhood neighborhood and, as she and that neighborhood face the realities of gentrification that are very literally knocking on their front doors, where exactly are her former neighbors going after they leave? Grounded in the uncomfortable reality of historical fact and complicated by two unreliable narrators, When No One is Watching is filled with twists, dead bodies, and betrayal, and also a reminder that American history is bleaker still. I was not wrong, but I also devoured When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole in one sitting, both because I needed to know how it ended and because once it was clear what the book was trying to do and be - an allegory on the inextricably intertwined nature of White Supremacy, capitalism, the built environment, and power - I wanted to see if the book could pull it off. Which is all to say that I approached this book with the expectation that the general thriller nature would require me to (metaphorically) read this through my scaredy cat fingers.
I am, admittedly, a bit ridiculous, but yes, I would prefer to be wrapped up in a blanket of love with periodic stops with ladies kicking ass. Not only do I need to be promised a happy ending, I also want the beginning and middle to be fairly cheerful and absent of conflict.
I don’t usually read romance thrillers, let alone straight ahead thrillers with only a little bit of lovin.
I should couch this review with the admission that I am the biggest scaredy cat.
Discussion of an abusive relationship, multiple on-page deaths via gun, dead bodies, a character nicknamed Ponytail Lululemon doing her very best cornerstore Karen, police violence, general White Supremacy fuckery
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