This one was a wild ride. Cassie is a lawyer who fell from grace in her last job and has now been relegated to doing temp work in order to pay the bills. She comes across correspondence from a senior partner and becomes obsessed with him, leading her to make more and more risky decisions.

While Cassie is not a particularly likeable or reliable narrator, there is something real about her that made some of the book uncomfortable to read (but in a good way)- she put herself in situations where I wanted to yell at her to just get out and rethink her strategy. Her level of obsession was so out of control that she alienated the one friend she had made, which led to an interesting side plot.

There were a couple different twists that I did not see coming, and the end was a surprise. I was impressed at how the author was able to tie all of the unseemingly connected things together as the reader raced to the end of the book.

I think I read this book in one sitting- if I took a break, it was a short one. I'd recommend it to those who enjoy fast-paced psychological suspense. Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book but she was crazy! It was overboard. I did finish it and the ending was a surprise. I rate this book a 3.1

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All I can say is WOW, what a roller coaster. I could not put this book down.

Cassie Woodson is an unreliable narrator with a troubled past. She moved from Lancaster, PA to NYC to pursue her legal career at a firm that ended up firing her after an incident with an ex lover. (It's never wise to dump someone over email) Cassie never had a mother as she left her as an infant and was raised by her dad and grandmother. Unfortunately her dad was dying of pancreatic cancer when her ex dumped her. The story picks up as Cassie starts a temp job at a law firm scanning emails for a lawsuit. She gets paid $25/hr to scan emails 12 hours a day, in a windowless room. Quite a downfall from her previous career as an associate at a law firm. How she keeps a condo on the UES is a mystery to me as well.

Cassie finds old emails between law firm partner Forest Wells and his wife Annabelle and becomes obsessed. She soon finds out just about anything she can through Google and social media. She goes to insane lengths to meet cute with Forest and suspects that his marriage is over and she believes Forest will be hers. All while Cassie misuses OTC pain pills and alcohol. Her friend Dalton at her temp job ghosts her and turns up dead and his mom wants answers. Once Cassie connects the dots, her life is at risk.

There were so many WTF moments because of how Cassie got into situations and how she managed to get herself out and her thinking was....obsessive and manic. The ending wrapped up a little neatly and it was a bit far fetched how she was 'saved' but I enjoyed this wild ride very much. Don't miss this book!
4.5/5 stars. TW for OTC drug abuse, alcohol abuse.

This is one of those novels that’s so well written it makes for an uncomfortable read. I liked Cassie, who is forced to do temp work, using her law degree not to advance up the ranks like at her last job, but merely to pay the bills. She lets the reader know early on that she was let go from her last position in a cloud of ignominy, but we don’t know the details. Very soon, we realize she has a screw loose, so I felt uncomfortable both in that I wanted her to get caught because she’s behaving like a lunatic and worrying that she’ll get caught because that scene will be ugly . . . because she’s behaving like a lunatic.

Her job as a temp is to go through emails on a case but mixed in with the business emails are the private correspondence of a rich, handsome attorney on another floor. His messages to his wife are what Cassie dreams a man would say to her, and she becomes increasingly obsessed with learning more about his and his wife’s lives.

The pacing of this is mostly relentless, but because stretches of it are just her going through really boring email exchanges, I had to skim/speed read my way through those sections. I thought the ending was well executed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel, which RELEASES JULY 27, 2021.

4.5 this book surprised me. it seemed at first like the story of an woman obsessed with a man and his perfect life. I wondered where the author was going to go with it. We watch her with an unclear past and unclear about her reliability as a narrator get more and more engrossed in his life and her desire for it to be her life. and then........ well i can't say without giving any spoilers

I LOVED this book!

It’s similar to YOU, which I loved (The first one, not the million sequels) with a dash of The Escape Room or The Boys Club. And the writing is outstanding!
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Cassie recently lost her job as an attorney at a prestigious law firm.

Now, she is working as a lowly temp, reviewing documents for a large lawsuit.

She inadvertently happens across some emails between one of the partners and his wife.

Fascination quickly escalates to obsession..... 👀
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I couldn’t flip pages fast enough. I highly recommend this one!!

Love this troupe, love the twists and turns, love the addition of more contemporary life. This book had me hooked from page one!

I love a stalker/obsession thriller and this one delivered in that respect for sure. I love following disturbed characters down the rabbit hole of their misadventures. However, I didn't love the direction the book went in when Cassie started pursuing her missing friend and it felt slightly shoehorned into the plot, but overall I couldn't put the book down and definitely recommend it if you're into the stalker/obsession trope.

“Just One Look Couldn’t Hurt.”

This is the perfect read for admirers of “obsession” thrillers. I knew where the story was going (I encountered the same “reveal” in a recent thriller by Minka Kent, so it crossed my mind once I was a few pages in), but it was very well-written and might appeal to fans of Caroline Kepnes’ YOU books.

This book...I don’t know if this was a case of ‘it’s me not you’ or if this book was really that boring?! For me this was just about a full chore getting through the book. 3 stars is probably being generous. The story is told by the main character Cassie & wow, I can’t do the crazy town character. Short story Cassie is working as a temp at a firm & finds herself crossing paths with a partner of the firm, which she quickly becomes very (very!) interested in. She has a lawyer background so she’s smart, but she’s 120% nuts & it made me dislike her character probably 3/4 of the book. Otherwise the way she seems as the book progresses she must be pretty & I’m assuming a good enough personality because the main male characters in the book are drawn to her but she’s so wack that I just can’t with her character. Even if she was more likeable the story bored me & drug for about 80% of it. After that it kept my interested but the ending was ridiculous & definitely didn’t make up for the lack of anything interesting or suspense in the entire book. If I based my review solely on the authors writing I’d probably give it 5stars, great writer but the story really lacked for me. If anyone asked I’d say pass on this one.

I do appreciate the ARC & the opportunity to read this in exchange for a review, thank you NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books!

4 Stars

Talk about a one-sitting read. I had the hardest time putting this book down for any reason. It was captivating right from the start.

Now I will say these kinds of thrillers are quickly becoming my favorite kind. Our main character isn't the girl next door, in fact, she is the one to watch out for. I can see why Just One Look gets compared to "You" but Cassie is no Joe. She is a much more tamed version of Joe, so I don't see the comparison all that much. Cassie has her issues, of course, but she has been through a lot. We slowly get to watch her become more unhinged as her obsession with Forest grows. Dalton was a very interesting character, and I really liked his blossoming friendship with Cassie. Their little dinner talks were some of my favorite parts.

The big plot twist, I did see coming. But I don't think that is a bad thing. I was too engrossed in the story that I didn't care that I guessed it 10 chapters ago. Now for obvious reasons, I cannot explain any more than that. It's a great twist to a wonderful story.

Thanks to the wonderful publishers for letting me read this one early. I look forward to more books written by Lindsay Cameron. Definitely give this one a go.

Cassie is the super cringe character you love to hate! After she lost her job as a lawyer at a prestigious firm she has to do temp jobs just to make ends meet. Her recent job is going through documents for an upcoming court case and boy is it boring. That is until she comes across the email inbox of Forest. Immediately she is consumed with wanting to know everything about his life. We all know though that obsession can turn deadly and as she purposely inserts herself into Forest’s life it maybe that she really doesn’t know him at all.

I love a good obsession book and this one definitely hit the mark. There is nothing I love more than when a main character makes you wince with their outlandish behavior and Cassie was doing overtime in this department.

Very good book. Fast paced and keeps you on your toes. This book is very addictive I wanted to just read a few chapters but couldn’t put it down. Great book, I will be watching this author to see what is next

Despite the glowing reviews, this was not my cup of tea. I found Cassie one-sided and frustrating, so many chances to redeem herself and she just goes in deeper into her strange obsession with Forest and Annabelle. In fact, I disliked her so much, I found Forest (!!) more sympathetic than Cassie.

Not to mention, this story is told via Cassie’s point of view/ 1st person, so there’s a lot of internalization, which is not my jam. A little bit is fine, but pages and pages of it? No thank you, not interested. If I had known that earlier, I would have passed altogether.

I have to say I mostly hated the main character. But I think that was kind of the point. Definitely an unreliable/unlikeable narrator.

I liked the overall story and it definitely held my attention. The twist was pretty obvious, but again, I don't think it was supposed to be a huge twist type story. There were still some good surprises to keep it interesting.

Cassie Woodson is a cross between Single White Female and Fatal Attraction. She is a mess. a liar, a stalker, and devious to the core. I didn’t like her at all, but the story was interesting. She is obsessed with Forest, a lawyer, and compiles minute details about his life so she can become a part of it. There’s her backstory that readers are finally privy to and also the story of what happens to Dalton. Out of all the characters, I liked Ricky. I think he was the most genuine. Cassie made me feel grungy and unclean just reading about her. She was also scary as hell with her obsessive behavior and stalking. Makes you think twice about everything that can be found out about a person.

Up and coming lawyer, Cassie has done something terribly wrong, it's cost her her job, her career, her relationship; but exactly what did she do? Reader's won't find out until the very end of Cameron's tale of Cassie's plunge into deep depression. From her mother's abandonment as a child to the loss of her father to cancer and the end of her "perfect" relationship via a text message, Cassie has been through more emotional trauma in her young life than most experience in a lifetime. Turning to alcohol and pills to numb her days in her now lonely condo, Cassie fixates on a handsome lawyer who works in the same building in which she temps. Obsessively learning every detail of his life, she inserts herself into his world, ignoring the cautionary words of her fellow temp, Dalton.

At every turn of the page, the reader is screaming out to Cassie to make a different decision, to pull herself away from the madness she has created before the consequences of her actions catch up to her with deadly purpose.

Ooooh. This is a fun one. The first couple chapters took me a bit to get into (because law based stuff fails to hold my attention most times), but man, I'm glad I kept with it.
It reminded me a little bit of "you" but with a female perspective and less murder. It's more psychological, both in her traumatic past and her stalker-ish present.

Personal emails draws a young woman's obsession over a couple.

When disgraced lawyer Cassie takes on a temp job for an agency going over emails in a fraud case, she accidentally gets sent personal emails between a partner at the firm named Forrest, and his wife, Annabelle. Bored and lonely, Cassie decides she'll take just one look. And then another. Soon she's finding out everything she can about Forrest and Annabelle, through social media and her own investigating, and of course, all of their emails she now has access to. When it looks like the perfect couple might be breaking up, Cassie decides the only person who should ever get Forrest is her, and she orchestrates a chance meeting with him. Things escalate, and soon Cassie's obsession could turn deadly, a friend goes missing and nothing is as innocent as it seems.

This is fun story that shows just how much people share online and in emails/messaging and how quickly anyone could find out anything and just how dangerous that can be. Cassie is an interesting character, sympathetic and then wicked, and back again. This will definitely make you want to delete your browser history.

WOW! This book had my heart racing....couldn’t put it down and read it in two days! Couldn’t believe the ending...absolutely loved it! The storyline was unpredictable...you never knew what Cassie (main character) was going to get herself into next. I was rooting for her the whole time, but also wished she could have made better choices at times. This was a fast paced and very thrilling read!

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this ARC.