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Watching You Without Me

Lynn Coady (Goodreads Author)

3.70 · Rating details · 774 ratings · 135 reviews

The highly anticipated new literary suspense novel from Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author Lynn Coady.

After her mother’s sudden death, Karen finds herself back in her childhood home in Nova Scotia for the first time in a decade, acting as full-time caregiver to Kelli, her older sister. Overwhelmed with grief and the daily needs of Kelli, who was born with a development ...more

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Paperback, 376 pages

Published October 1st 2019 by House of Anansi Press

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Oct 17, 2019 Krista rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, can-con, 2019, atlantic-can

For lack of a daughter, then – a proper daughter, a daughter who called more than once every couple of months, a daughter who visited more than once a year, a daughter willing to shoulder her way past the slammed-shut door of “Fine” every time she asked her mother, “How are things?”– Irene had managed to recruit herself a son.

Watching You Without Me is a psychologically astute family drama, and I'd almost go so far as to call it a domestic noir/thriller except that it never goes over the top

For lack of a daughter, then – a proper daughter, a daughter who called more than once every couple of months, a daughter who visited more than once a year, a daughter willing to shoulder her way past the slammed-shut door of “Fine” every time she asked her mother, “How are things?”– Irene had managed to recruit herself a son.

Watching You Without Me is a psychologically astute family drama, and I'd almost go so far as to call it a domestic noir/thriller except that it never goes over the top into psycho-nanny/baby-snatcher/evil-ex territory. Instead, author Lynn Coady tells us a story about recognisably human characters doing their best in difficult times – even the character who adds menace to the narrative is acting true to his own nature and doesn't feel gratuitous or overblown. I enjoyed every bit of this. (Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms. Slight spoilers in plot overview.)

I was so grateful in that moment. When I tell this story now and people ask what I was thinking, it's this feeling of incongruous peace that I remember. It exists in my memory as the quick, satisfying sound of a zipper being hoisted. I never mention it, though – not that it seems so irrelevant compared to the details that come later, the juicy stuff that makes people cringe and cover their eyes. It's just that this is the moment of which I'm most ashamed. Ziiiipppppp! My pathetic gratitude. The wide-open door of it.

When she was a know-it-all twenty-year-old, Karen told her mother that it was time she put Kelli – Karen's developmentally delayed older sister whose care consumed all of her widowed mother's time and energy – into a group home and get on with her life. Irene explained that this was her life and the ensuing fight saw Karen leave their Nova Scotia home for Toronto – where she went to school, got married, and divorced – and an unbridgeable chasm was thus opened between mother and daughter. When Irene eventually died of cancer, Karen returned home to arrange for Kelli's placement in group care, but over the weeks they spent together, Karen began to remember how special her sister had always been; began to wonder if she might actually be able to care for her sister as her mother had; and besides, what did she have back in Toronto to return to? Karen has help from the team of community support workers that her mother had hired, and one in particular – a forceful man named Trevor who has a close and teasing relationship with Kelli – appears to have been indispensable to Irene, and Karen is so grateful for his help that she allows him to become indispensable to her, as well. By the time Karen realises that Trevor is bullying and gaslighting her – and realises that he must have been doing the same to her mother – he is too entrenched in their lives to easily dislodge.

It's the characters who really bring this story to life. Kelli is totally real without being played for pathos or absurdity – her tics and stubbornness, her shy smiles and screaming; Coady does a wonderful job of showing how equally sweet and frustrating she would be to care for while always maintaining her dignity of character. Trevor might be a bully and a narcissist, but you can identify with the motivations that make him want to cling to this family. And it was interesting that Karen had lost her father when she was young – having been raised in a “girl-world”, Karen felt unprepared to deal with men, whether her erstwhile husband or the forceful Trevor. Whenever I'd be thinking, “Why don't you just throw him out?”, I'd then need to remind myself that that's what someone in a book might do, maybe not someone who just lost her estranged mother and who was now overwhelmed with the care of her sister and who had never really learned to talk to men. The way everything and everyone gels together just feels like real life.

I know that it's perverse, the pleasure I get from this whole process. That's why I've told this story as many times as I have, to so many different people. It's one of those pleasurable if not quite healthy compulsions, like picking obsessively at your cuticles.

I also liked the format of having Karen address the reader periodically, as though personally and intimately unspooling her best yarn. The foreshadowing this allowed for was expertly and engagingly done and it helped to build a sympathetic relationship with the narrator (and especially when Karen points out what various listeners to her tale had interjected about what she could have done differently along the way, answering my own concerns and making her seem even more human; and especially since she could laugh about all this is the future). Everything about this was interesting and relatable – and in particular what it has to say about family relationships and what responsibilities we have to each other – and I liked the whole thing. ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Carol rated it liked it

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It was well written and an interesting story with some great characters but I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think I was expecting it to be more sinister than it was and kept waiting for something startling to happen. Things got a little tense in the last 30 or 40 pages, more like what I was expecting, but, like other readers, I was totally baffled by the ending. I must have read it 6 times and still don't understand. I didn't like the book well enough ...more

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Oct 12, 2020 DeB MaRtEnS rated it really liked it

Shelves: dramatic-fiction, canadian, memorably-good, creepy, 2020-year

Kind of mesmerizing, in a bad dream sort of way- I simply couldn’t put this one down... Karen’s mother has died and left her with the job of sorting the family home and her disabled sister into some cohesive solution, none of which is easy to come into after years of near alienation. Nothing is as simple as Karen assumed it was going to be; a month absence from her career hardly begins to touch the surface. The care aide, Trevor, has inveigled his way into her mother and sister’s lives, and Kare Kind of mesmerizing, in a bad dream sort of way- I simply couldn’t put this one down... Karen’s mother has died and left her with the job of sorting the family home and her disabled sister into some cohesive solution, none of which is easy to come into after years of near alienation. Nothing is as simple as Karen assumed it was going to be; a month absence from her career hardly begins to touch the surface. The care aide, Trevor, has inveigled his way into her mother and sister’s lives, and Karen is overwhelmed by the burden she faces.

The suspense creeps insidiously, as the care aide’s presence begins to loom more and more ominously and Karen gradually loses more and more confidence in herself. A very human situation, I thought- to arrive, unprepared for another family member’s life, guilt propelling actions and best intentions clouding judgement if all the facts have been withheld, as is so often the case as time, distance and misunderstandings occur within families. And then, the confusion, the possibility of opportunistic or malevolent others- Coady is masterful in layering all of this here, slowly building, sketching the parameters anyone might discover within themselves, the vulnerability and the sense that life has come apart, unhinged.

Her character studies are simply wonderful, even though I can say that I wasn’t particularly enamoured by any of them! The angst and conflict at every turn makes for great suspenseful reading, but not for warm and fuzzy empathetic moments.

I felt a wee bit creeped out, as I have upon reading Minette Walters- the kind of slow psychological burn inside someone’s head, or a number of heads, and none especially comfortable, hanging on like a car wreck in slow motion with hope for some brake power at the point of impact, not big combustion... yet, tinged with a degree of horror, the ride over... and around the next corner, the same human condition continues to plague. Deliciously vile, true to life and frustratingly recognizable.

Very, very good... I’ll be checking more out by this author! A very strong 4.5 stars.

...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Nicole Myers rated it it was amazing

Superb writing. F**king Trebbie.

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Nov 02, 2019 Alexis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

A rare five star review from me. I loved the plot of this novel, and the way it was written. Karen, who narrates in the first person, moves back to Nova Scotia after her mother has passed away from cancer. She is left to care for her sister Kelli, who is developmentally disabled. One of Kelli's caregivers, Trevor, has a strange relationship with the family. The book is both domestic and sinister, at the same time. There is a hint of domestic noire, but it's also a book about caregiving, about mo ...more

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May 26, 2019 Vicki rated it it was amazing

Still catching my breath and sorting my thoughts as I recover from this suspenseful psychological study of familial love and guilt ... My admiration for Lynn Coady's craft has reached new heights. ...more

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Aug 11, 2019 Ramona Jennex rated it really liked it

The protagonist, Karen Petrie, tells the story of what happened on her return to Nova Scotia from Toronto when her mother passes and she is entrusted with the responsibility of her older sister (who needs constant care due to her developmental disability.) Her thoughts on her telling of her story:
“I know that it's perverse, the pleasure I get from this whole process. That’s why I’ve told this story as many times as I have to so many different people. It’s one of those pleasurable it not quite h The protagonist, Karen Petrie, tells the story of what happened on her return to Nova Scotia from Toronto when her mother passes and she is entrusted with the responsibility of her older sister (who needs constant care due to her developmental disability.) Her thoughts on her telling of her story:
“I know that it's perverse, the pleasure I get from this whole process. That’s why I’ve told this story as many times as I have to so many different people. It’s one of those pleasurable it not quite healthy compulsions. Like picking obsessively at your cuticles. Once, riding the bus, I saw a young woman across from me frowning at her bare forearms until at last she could no longer stand what she saw. She pulled out a set of tweezers and started plucking at the invisible hairs of her arm. It went on for a full ten minutes-just plucking and plucking at herself without looking up. My compulsion to tell this story has always felt a little like that. Although I’ve never told it this thoroughly or ruthlessly before, which I think means I’ll be done with it for good once you and I are finished here.”
There were so many times I wanted to take Karen by the shoulders and look her in the eye…... but then I would remember how fraught I was after the death of my son. I recognized the numbness, confusion and guilt of Karen. The brain protects the person from the shock –this is a time one is extremely vulnerable to manipulation/suggestion/paralysis. A thaw takes place over time and clarity resumes.
Lynn explores the complexity of caregiving, the difficult relationships of mothers and daughters and the manipulative nature of abusers. She treats the character of Kelli, who has a developmental disability in a non-stereotypical manner but with tenderness and respect. It is obvious why Lynn Coady is an award winning author. Once you start this book be prepared to make the space to read through to the end- a page turner for sure. (And make sure you have a cup of tea at the ready
...more

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Sep 25, 2019 Lori Bosworth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: canadian, maritimes, fiction

Wow! I loved this book and couldn't put it down. It caught my attention from the first few pages, which isn't always the case. Lynn Coady puts on a master class about how to gradually increase the tension toward the "crisis" so that we become addicted to and invested in the characters' wellbeing. The three main characters, Karen, Trevor and Kelli, were very well drawn - I can understand Karen's ambivalence as a result of the grief/guilt she is experiencing due to her mother's death - while the r ...more

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Jul 02, 2020 Elaine rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, am-i-thrilled, kindle

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of Watching You Without Me.

This is my first book by this author so I was pleased when my request was approved.

** Minor spoilers ahead **

The writing was good; sadly, the plot didn't capture my interest as I thought it would mainly due to the main character, Karen.

Karen has returned to her childhood home to care for her mentally disabled sister, Kelli, after the death of their mother, Irene.

Karen and Irene were estranged for many years and had never reconciled ...more

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Nov 09, 2019 Penny (Literary Hoarders) rated it liked it

Shelves: kobo-book, review-copy-provided, giller-prize, canlit, ebook, books-read-in-2019, own-it, what-book-club-read

It was good. It was. But I need to frame this more so that it is seen in the context for how/why it was read at this time. My in-person book club chose/voted for another suspense/thriller novel. I cannot get behind reading anymore from this genre. I'm full up and okay, if I'm cranky about it - I'm fed up. Our book club needs to get out of this rut. The book was enjoyable yes, but it was also too similar to the already too many books we've been reading from this genre. We need to turn that page ...more

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Feb 06, 2020 Craig M rated it it was ok

I went to Goodreads after finishing this book hoping to come to a better understanding of why it seems to be so well liked. I guess it's a matter of perspective; I did not enjoy this very much. I quite like Coady's writing, but I found there were many aspects to the plot I found tough. The main character, Karen, was just not very likeable in my opinion. She was in a tough situation, and I wanted to empathize with her. The relationship between Karen and Trevor (a caregiver who helped Karen's moth ...more

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Nov 19, 2019 Karan rated it really liked it

Tension from the get-go!

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Jan 11, 2020 Ian rated it really liked it

Following her mother’s death, 40-something Karen returns to Nova Scotia to care for her developmentally disabled sister Kelli and take charge of the family home. In Toronto, where she’s lived and worked for years, Karen has recently gone through a painful and messy divorce: these wounds are still fresh. Karen is a lone soul: her father is long dead and there are no other siblings. She seems to have few friends and no other relatives. About twenty years earlier, when she asserted her independence Following her mother’s death, 40-something Karen returns to Nova Scotia to care for her developmentally disabled sister Kelli and take charge of the family home. In Toronto, where she’s lived and worked for years, Karen has recently gone through a painful and messy divorce: these wounds are still fresh. Karen is a lone soul: her father is long dead and there are no other siblings. She seems to have few friends and no other relatives. About twenty years earlier, when she asserted her independence and left home determined to build a life that did not revolve around serving the round-the-clock needs of her mentally challenged sister, her mother accused her of selfishness. They argued, and the relationship since has been strained, to the point that, though they communicated, Karen did not even know that her mother’s cancer had advanced to the life-threatening stage. This is the setup for Watching You Without Me, Lynn Coady’s suspenseful tale of a grieving young woman’s efforts to break free of a past that has left her guilt-ridden and emotionally fragile. Enter Trevor, a support-worker employed by a care firm called Bestlife and assigned to Kelli’s case. Karen, in a highly vulnerable state and overwhelmed by the myriad chores and life-altering decisions that follow the death of a parent—concerning the house, its contents, Kelli’s future, and, as it turns out, her own future—is grateful for Trevor’s seemingly kindly insistence on helping out in any way he can. She realizes that he’s pushy and manipulative, controlling and temperamental, but is confident she can handle him, and since she has no one else to rely on she seeks his advice and accepts his recommendations on care facilities where Kelli could take up residence once the house is sold. Trevor becomes a fixture, assuming household chores and insinuating himself into her life in other less obvious ways. The story develops as a gradual dawning, with Karen resisting the evidence before her eyes until so much disturbing truth has been revealed that she’s forced to take drastic action. Coady’s masterstroke in this novel is Karen’s first-person voice: a breezy, uninhibited, occasionally expletive-laced, sometimes very funny vernacular that carries the reader along through the numerous twists and turns of an intricately plotted story. Watching You Without Me, a smart and enormously entertaining page-turner, is also a triumph of storytelling, filled with complex characters whose fates come to matter greatly. ...more

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Jul 26, 2020 Jeatherhane Reads rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, reader, 2020, set-in-canada, read-year-published, first-person-narrator, canadian-author

Why do we feel the need to be polite to people who cross the line and act inappropriately? Maybe it is part of the Maritimes etiquette which requires us to be friendly and polite. I'd like to believe I would never be a naïve as Karen, but what makes this story so scary is that maybe it actually could happen to me.
“I had forgotten how smallish cities like this one worked, the way people found out about one another—and east coast people had a knack for this in particular.”
Karen’s mother has just d ...more

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Sep 27, 2020 Louise rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian

I don't particularly like reading about stupid people and this narrator was a complete idiot. ...more

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Oct 06, 2019 Donna Wellard rated it really liked it

Her mother dies and Karen has come home to Nova Scotia to settle her mother’s affairs and take care of her developmentally delayed sister, Kelli. Enter Trevor, a caregiver who has helped Karen’s family in the past and Jessica, a childhood school friend who reappears in her life. I have experienced the dealings of a master manipulator in my own life, so all of my being hoped that Karen would realise what was going on before she got in too deep. Some people just don’t recognize or accept boundarie ...more

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Jan 07, 2020 Hannah rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2019

This one took a long time for me to get into but the reviews were so glowing that I stuck with it (that, and my inability to NOT finish a book, even if I enjoy it 0%) and by the end I was on board. It might have even been the ending that make me bring it up from a 2 star to a 3.5. It's certainly well-written and I liked the Canadian appeal, but the plot really dragged along for me. ...more

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Mar 07, 2020 Kathryn Mockler rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, novel, 95books-2020

Could not put this book down!

So good!

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Feb 22, 2021 Anne Caverhill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2021

Ostensibly this story is about a woman returning to Nova Scotia to take care of her dependent adult sister, after their mother dies. But it is about so much more and I loved the way the author spun the story about grief and sorrow as it translated into irritability and regret introducing us to characters who were far from perfect but oh, so relatable.

This book, this author, also made me smile with references to the ugliness of Fenwick Tower, the walkability of Spring Garden Road, and the beauty ...more

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Sep 18, 2020 Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ rated it liked it

Shelves: bingo, set-2000-present, canadian

The premise of this book is interesting, but I had trouble with the characters, especially the protagonist Karen. I rarely empathized with her and couldn't comprehend most of her decision making. ...more

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Dec 26, 2020 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4 stars

This was so well written. Until the very end, I didn't know whether or not to like one of the main characters although I knew that something was not as it seemed. This book definitely kept me turning the pages! ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Alan Teder rated it really liked it

Shelves: canadian-author, suspense-fiction, 2019-reading-challenge, family-fiction

Slow-burn Caregiver Stalking Tale
Review of the House of Anansi Press paperback edition (2019)

In the past several years I've had a fairly intense grounding in the home care and the long-term care home environment with various elderly relatives. That experience introduces you to a whirlwind of personalities each of whom have their personal traits, quirks and foibles. The motherly warm-hearted bedside manner is the ideal and at the other extreme may be the insistent demanding cloying passive/aggres ...more

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Nov 05, 2020 Ann Marie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Special thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I read this book out of sheer boredom and it peaked my interest. It's about two sisters, Kelli and Karen, Kelli is at home in need of caretakers and her mom, then mom suddenly dies, so Karen finds herself moving back home to care for Kelli.

One of Kelly's caretakers Trevor is always around acting like the perfect caretaker and a shoulder to cry on and someone to talk to, and they get close, but as time goes on, Karen starts ...more

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Oct 06, 2019 Deborah Bee rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019-challenge

Good read if you are a caregiver, but the mystery’s creepy side of the book is just too strained. There is a lot of joy in caring, funny situations when communication is strained and The book has heartwarming moments.

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Oct 12, 2019 Corinne Wasilewski rated it it was amazing

After reading this novel, I can happily say that Lynn Coady is back! This is worth noting because I opened Watching You Without Me with some trepidation. Coady is one of my favourite authors, however, Hellgoing was a disappointment. Was it possible Coady had run out of meaningful stories to tell?

I suppose my affinity for Coady’s work relates to the familiarity of the maritime setting, the authenticity of the dialogue, her ability to really root out what drives her characters, and the ever prese ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 Virginia rated it really liked it

I always look forward to reading a new Lynn Coady book - sometimes she delights me, sometimes she makes me mad, sometimes she confuses me. Watching You Without Me was a quick read that engaged me totally since I've been in a very similar situation with an over-zealous personal support worker (view spoiler) Coady is a down-to-earth writer who doesn't resort to flowery desc ...more

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Oct 16, 2019 Krista rated it really liked it

This was a little different than I remember Lynn Coady's books to be, but I really enjoyed it.

The characterization was wonderful, and I love books that are set in Halifax/Dartmouth. ...more

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Nov 18, 2019 Kerry Ryan rated it it was amazing

Wowsa! This is a great read, with such slow burning tension and subtle creepiness. It kept me up waaaay too late!

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Jul 20, 2020 Chelsea | thrillerbookbabe rated it liked it

Shelves: netgalley, arc, thriller-mystery

Thank you so much to Knopf/Doubleday Publishing, Lynn Coady, and Netgalley for my advanced review copy of Watching You Without Me. This book was a psychological family drama that was just short of creepy. Part of me still doesn’t know what to think about this book, and the other part is WOWed by the great writing.

Thoughts: This story was more of a slow-burn that you could see building over time. It wasn’t necessarily a thriller, but was psychological and was dramatic. I enjoyed the writing style ...more

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Mar 02, 2021 SquatchDon’tLie rated it liked it · review of another edition

It was worth reading. Most interesting and life-like was the developmentally disabled sister, though all the characters seemed very real. But the sister, with her quirks and personality, was someone I wanted to spend time with and see how different people reacted. Some with kindness, some with meanness. The dreadful overbearing male character who takes over in this story is also well done.
I think the part that makes me less in love with the book is the main character. As the reader, I found mys ...more

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About Lynn Coady

Lynn Coady

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Lynn Coady is an award-winning author, editor, and journalist. Her previous novels include Saints of Big Harbour, which was a national bestseller and a Globe and Mail Top 100 book, and Mean Boy, a Globe and Mail Top 100 book. Her popular advice column, Group Therapy, runs weekly in the Globe and Mail. Coady is originally from Cape Breton Island, NS, and is now living in Edmonton, Alberta.

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“Just think of all the confidence we start out with, all the certainty. And then we embark and we fail, much to our surprise. And then we fail something else, and gradually the surprise dwindles and soon we are surprised by nothing and thus are made adults.” — 1 likes

“I thought my life with Kelli could be balanced, mitigated,. That Irene had just been doing it all wrong these years. I' thought we could hang out like normal sisters, run errands, go for lattes with Jessica Hendy, and every now and then go off and have a little temper tantrum if Kelli go on my nerves--leave her in the car, assume she'd be fine. I'd assumed I could indulge myself if need be, that there could be some kind of fulfillment beyond my sister's care--that I didn't have to give myself over to it completely. But here's what I needed to understand--what Irene understood. Either you were all in with Kelli, or you were not. But if you were, Kelli had to become your joy. Kelli would be where you went for meaning. Kelli was what it was all about. And Irene was right about this too-- it was like faith. It was exactly like faith in that you had to stop futzing around and let it take you over. No more hemming and hawing. No more trying to have it both ways. And once you put your petty shit aside --your petty ego and your petty needs and your petty ambitions--that was when at last the world opened up. The world that was Kelli. It was a small world, a circumscribed world but it was your world and you did what you could to make it more beautiful. You focused on hygiene, nourishing meals, a pleasing home that always smelled good. That was your achievement and more important that was you. Once you accept that, you were--and this was strange to think, but the moment I thought it, I realized I put my finger on the savagely beating heart of my mother's philosophy--free.

When I was a kid, my mother had a lavishly illustrated encyclopedia of saints she would sometimes flip through with me, and I remember how she always made a point of skipping over Saint Teresa of Avila . She didn't want to talk about the illustration that went with it. It was a photograph of the sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, and it was pretty obvious to me even as a child why my mother disapproved. It was a sexy sculpture. The smirking angel prepares to pierce Teresa's heart with his holy spear, and boy oh boy is Saint Teresa ready. Her eyes are closed, her lips are parted, and somehow everything about her marble body, swathed in marble clothing looks to be in motion. Saint Teresa is writhing.

She's writhing because that is what it is to be a Catholic Saint. This is your fulfillment. The giving over. The letting go. The disappearance.

This is what it takes” — 0 likes

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