Audiobook Mini Review: LOOK BEHIND YOU by Sibel Hodge

Title: Look Behind You

Author: Sibel Hodge
Narrator: Susan Duerden
Read: April 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

Chloe Benson wakes up kidnapped and bound in an underground tomb with no memory of how she got there.

She escapes through deserted woods with her life, but no one believes her story.

And when she suspects her husband is lying to her, Chloe is forced to retrace her past, following in her own footsteps to find the truth and stay alive.

But who is following Chloe?

My musings:

POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!

I love psychological thrillers that mess with your mind, so I had high hopes for this one, but unfortunately it didn't quite deliver for me. The book starts off with Zoe as she is finding herself captive in an underground chamber, with no recollection of how she got there and what happened prior to her captivity. She manages to escape, only to find that noone believes her story, due to having suffered some sort of psychosis shortly before her disappearance that had resulted in hallucinations and an alleged attempt to take her own life. Her husband, the police and her doctors are convinced that her story is just another result of a reaction to medications that were found in her bloodstream, and tell her to get on with her life. But how can she, when she is convinced that someone is out there trying to kill her?

On a positive note, I really liked the author's interpretation of the judgment reserved for a person who may have suffered mental health issues in the past. Even though Chloe is convinced that she had been abducted and left for dead, everyone around her puts her story down to hallucinations or a cry for help. I imagine how frustrating this would be, and admit that I was never quite sure of Chloe's reliability as a narrator myself.

On the downside, I found Chloe's frantic internal monologue to be repetitive and dragging in places, slowing down the narrative and grating on my nerves as she ruminates on the same events over and over – and over again! There were few surprises in the outcome of the story for me, therefore also lacking the shock element that would have made the final denouement worth the very lengthy build up. Whilst I usually don’t mind a slow-burning mystery, I found myself getting bored and frustrated, wanting to speed things along a bit. As a character, Chloe became a bit stagnant and I would have liked a more insight and background into what made her tick. Perhaps audio, with its leisurely narration, also wasn’t the best choice for this slow-burner for me.