Cover Image: Never Saw Me Coming

Never Saw Me Coming

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Member Reviews

Thanks to NetGalley & Harlequin Audio for providing a free audiofile in exchange for an honest review.

Great premise for this book! As we know from the "Dexter" books and TV show, we all love siding with a psychopath. This book gives us a whole selection of them to observe and (potentially) relate to. Chloe, our main character, is quite relatable. She takes a page out of Felicity's book and follows a boy to college. Unlike Felicity, she isn't chasing a crush, she's out for revenge against the boy who sexually assaulted her when she was little more than a child. She's even set herself a timeline for achieving this goal. She just needs to fly under the radar, since she's in a program through the Psychology Department that gives students who are diagnosed psychopaths a free ride to university if they participate in a clinical study - it wouldn't do to have one of the 7 psychopaths in the program get caught murdering another student!
When that does happen (because how could it not?), it's not actually Chloe who's to blame. She and a few other students in the program eventually find one another and team up to determine who the murderer is, hopefully without getting killed themselves.
This story flowed nicely, and Vera Kurian was good about not painting a too-rosy portrait of psychopaths. Yes, they are possibly misunderstood, but they are also a bit devoid of empathy, heavy risk takers, impulsive ... you get the idea. This cast list is basically a group of villains (save that one student who might be in the program under false pretenses), and it's fun to hear their machinations and reasoning. It's definitely over-the-top, but it's a fun ride. There are a few bits that stretch the boundaries of believability, but that's standard operating procedure for thrillers these days. The ending is a bit rushed, and that aspect of the story ends all tied in a nice, neat bow, but there are still unfinished bits left from these characters. I wouldn't say no to the further adventures of The Psychopaths.
The voice acting is quite good, and I would definitely listen to more from Brittany Pressley.

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Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for this ARC. Well, where do I begin. I am new to the thriller genre and I have to say that if I keep reading books like this one, I am going to get hooked. Fast. With a captivating cast of deliciously devilish characters, a fast moving plot, an interesting and not run-of-the-mill romance, I couldn't put this book down. I heard of this title at a talk during the ALA conference and the plot hooked me. I'm glad that the book delivered. I'll definitely be recommending this one for purchase at my library and be adding it to one of my book club reading lists.

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Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian was an enticing novel about how a psychopath thinks and acts. You get the viewpoint of several psychopaths in one story. Great read.

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Interesting idea for a book. Psychopaths living in everyday life. A good whodunit! The narorrator was great!

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At John Adams University, there is a program where the presiding faculty attempts to form psychopaths into functional members of society. Chloe is one of the seven psychopathic students participating in the program when two of the participants are murdered. She, Charles, and Andre, who are also part of the program, work together to figure out who is the murderer, but they're not convinced that one of them isn't the culprit. All the while, Chloe is preoccupied with planning to kill a childhood friend who she has held a rightful grudge against for six years.

Kurian uses multiple narrators, none of whom can be trusted to be reliable, and it's done well. Each character has their own voice and personality, and they all take turns being likeable and unlikeable. The ending is left open, as if Kurian is planning a sequel. This works both for and against the novel. There's still a lot left of the plot that can be explored, but it felt like it cut off too early. It was also easy to get annoyed or frustrated with the characters, particularly Chloe, but this makes sense with the premise of the book. I would be willing to read a sequel just to see what Chloe looks like with her mask off.

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I never thought I’d love such morally bankrupt characters before, but here we are.

I really loved this book. It’s a who-done-it (or rather, who-is-doing-it) where not only is everyone a suspect, but they’re suspects not because of motive, but rather because of the nature of their disorders.

I was worried I would write this book off as another story flattening and vilifying those who suffer from mental illness, but because each character presents their psychopathy so differently, I appreciated it, and it was a wild ride.

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Chloe is no ordinary young woman. She’s a psychopath, and as such, she’s part of a clinical study of others like her at a college. Chloe is fixated on one man, and she spends most of her time plotting, dreaming about killing him. A series of murders on campus diverts her attention away from her obsession; she might be a psychopath but she wouldn’t kill without a good reason. With help from the other members of the study, she sets out to uncover the killer, all too aware it could be someone close to her. This book was so unique and Chloe is a perfectly implausible heroine. Smart, slick and very dark.

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