Review: Watched by CJ Lyons (COYER Summer Challenge #2)

First thanks to Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for allowing me to read an egalley of this.  I didn't get to it before it was published, but did get to it as part of my COYER challenge this summer.  I was sad to not get to it earlier, because I loved the first book I read by this author, Broken.  This was a completely different type of story, but still, a very good one.  Watched focuses on a newer type of crime, or at least one that I feel hasn't been publicized as much and is only lately starting to be heard about, it's called capping.  According to the definition at the beginning of the book, capping is the practice of capturing covert screenshots, usually of underage girls and boys, and then using them to coerce the subjects into performing sexual acts on video.

We have two main characters, and the story is told from their viewpoints in alternating chapters.  First is Jesse.  His life is not his own.  First, he lives with his mom and younger sister at his uncle's house since their father disappeared with no warning.  His uncle has been sexually abusing him since he was little.  And one time a man named King, a hacker, found out about his uncle and him, and began making them do videos for clients.  And once they did one video, now Jesse must keep doing them, or King has threatened his family, even going so far as to set his mom up on a blind date with a man that would have killed her.  Not to mention what would happen if the videos leaked out to the public. 

The other character is Miranda, and she has also had her own run-in with King, who she calls The Creep.  But she stood up to him.  When he found a video that was posted of her from a 13th birthday party, he started blackmailing her.  Or tried, but she said no.  And then he sent the video public, and also caused problems for her parents.  One time her mother was even attacked.  She attempted suicide after one of his major attacks on the family and her family moved and tried to stay off the grid, or out of anything that might cause King to find her.  But now she has agoraphobia and can't leave.  But all she can think of is taking King down. And so she uses her computer skills to try to find one of the victims and get them to help her.  Her plan starts to take place once Jesse gets her package with a burner cell phone, and calls her. 

But beating King won't be so easy.  He has covered his tracks really well.  And his own technology expertise means he can use computers just about anywhere remotely to keep an eye on those he "owns" or who are trying to stop him. 

I guess this is a trend of something that is happening more and more.  Reading this book made me want to cover the little camera on my laptop to make sure no one is watching me.  I think this is a great teen read, shows just exactly how careful you have to be with what you post online, and just what could happen.  It shows that there are really creepy, evil people out there, whether you want to believe it or not.  But in the end it gives some hope that people can take back their lives if they try and are willing to do what is needed.  Another highly recommended book by CJ Lyons.

Broken by C.J. Lyons

First of all, thanks to Netgalley, as well as SourceBooks Fire, for allowing me to read an e-galley of this story.  Now, before I get into my review, I'd like to talk about how shortly after I got approved for this, I got an email from a publicity intern at Sourcebooks asking if I'd like to be a part of a tour to promote the book, Broken, which I agreed to before I'd even read it.  Now that I've read the book, I'm very glad I chose to participate!  I really enjoyed it.  Again, before I get to my review, I'm going to share a few interview questions I got to ask the author.  In honor of participating in NaNoWriMo this year, I asked a lot of questions having to do with writing.  Here is my interview:

1.  When did you first begin writing?

CJ: I’ve always used stories to makes sense of the world around me—it’s my coping mechanism for dealing with chaos. But I never really thought of writing as a career until after I sold my second novel--that’s second novel sold. I’d written my first novel in high school followed by two SF/F novels in medical school. I think I had five or six full novels and several half-started ones finished by the time I sold my first book.

2.  When you start a story, do you plan it all out with an outline or notecards?  Or do you just know what is going to happen kind of, and write it as you go?

CJ: I’m deathly allergic to outlines, notecards, highlighters, and any form of organization! I’m a seats of the pants writer—usually I start with a character and an idea about how to make their life miserable and I go from there.

3.  Where do you get your ideas for your stories?

CJ: Anywhere and everywhere. News stories are a great source. I love watching people and observing how they react in situations. I also tend to ask a lot of questions about what could go wrong—like when I was in my bank the other day and started asking about ways people might get into the safety deposit boxes. Thankfully, they know me (I keep them well supplied with free books!) so they didn’t call the cops.

4.  How do you feel your career in the medical field helps or contributes to your writing?

CJ: Being a storyteller helped me to be a better doctor—always looking for the “rest” of a patient’s story. And being a doctor allowed me to witness firsthand acts of extraordinary courage by “ordinary” people as well as knowledge of a field that is natural fodder for thrillers.

5.  Have you ever gotten stuck (writer's block) and how did you overcome it?

CJ: I’ve never had writer’s block—don’t really believe in it. Every time I get stuck, it means I’ve messed up—usually twenty to thirty pages back. So I’ll live with the story, listen to the characters, make sure I truly understand what they want and why they want it and get back on track. I don’t worry about it, it’s all part of the process of digging deeper into a story than what it might first reveal on the surface.

About CJ:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-one novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart.

Winner of the International Thriller Writers’ coveted Thriller Award, CJ has been called a "master within the genre" (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as "breathtakingly fast-paced" and "riveting" (Publishers Weekly) with "characters with beating hearts and three dimensions" (Newsday).

Learn more about CJ's Thrillers with Heart at www.CJLyons.net

Thank you C.J. for answering my questions!  I must say your answer to number 2 makes me feel better about how I always seem to go about trying to write, I don't really ever write an outline, but I've always wondered if that's why I get stuck, so maybe no!  

Here is my review of Broken.  Now, when I began reading, I actually kind of wondered why did I pick this book again?  It seemed like it was going to end up being a pretty contemporary fiction, reminding me in a way of the John Green story, The Fault in Our Stars.  But I remembered that there was supposed to be something weird about the school that the main character, Scarlett was now attending.  Actually this was the first time Scarlett had ever really attended school, since she was very young, she always been sick, a genetic heart defect.  It was only recently that she'd decided she wanted to live what life she had, since she knew it wouldn't be that much longer that she had.  She wanted to experience what healthy kids her age did, school.  Up until this point she'd been homeschooled, as she'd mostly been living in hospitals or at home.  Her dad traveled a lot for work.  But her step mom, as her biological mother died in childbirth I believe, has been the one taking care of her. She has been around as long as Scarlett can remember, and to Scarlett she is her mother.  She's been the one taking care of her, holding her hand, cleaning up after her being sick, fighting at the hospitals and with the doctors to make sure her daughter got the best care.  Although she wasn't happy about Scarlett going to school, she's given her one week to try it.  If it doesn't work during that week, then this experiment will be over, and life will go back to how it's always been.   But from the first day, Scarlett is on edge, right away a bully begins to pick on her.  Scarlett must take a defibrillator with her to school every day, and that gets her noticed right away.  The first bright moment in her day is the peer mentoring group.  The cute guy who is her locker partner, Jordan, is in the group.  When she first met Jordan at their locker, and he touched her, just a quick friendly pat, she was unsure if her heart racing was her defect, or her heart finally feeling the hormones that other teens felt.  The peer group was great, she had new friends now, Nessa and Celina. Nessa's sister had committed suicide, and had been friends with Jordan.  Celina also had issues, an autistic sister, as well as a mother dying of cancer.  Their teacher advisor, didn't seem like that great of a guy to any of them, but that was that.  Oh, and did I mention that Scarlett's stepmother is the nurse at this school?  So really, Scarlett doesn't even get a chance to get away from her and live on her own.  This book takes place over this one week.  One week.  In this one week Scarlett also makes another friend, a boy, who might be a boyfriend.  And she learns things, things that change her whole life, as well as what life she may have next.  But where the book went?  While I had a few inklings of this being the actual plot early on, I dismissed them due to how the whole dynamic of the characters played out.  Until one of the things Scarlett found out on her science research project.

This was a book I could barely put down.  I had to know what was going to happen, and even when I found out that my earlier hunch was true, I still had to continue to read on to find out how it would all play out, and who all had been actually involved.  This book comes out on Tuesday, November 5th, and one really awesome opportunity is that you can get the e-book for $4.99, but only if you pre-order before the 5th, that's half price of what the e-book will be after that date.  It is available for this sale price for Nook, Kindle, all e-book formats as far as I can tell.

Make sure you check this one out!

Stacking the Shelves #4, Wrap Up of Blogoversary Celebration Month, and Giveaway Winners

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!  This is being hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  I only  have two books to share this week, but I was pretty excited to get them!  I got Eve and Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate.  It was a contest I entered through Shelf Awareness newsletter from MacMillan publishing.  And I was so excited to see it come in the mail!

The other book was from Netgalley:  Broken by A.E. Rought, a modern take on the Frankenstein story.  Which sounded interesting to me!

  
Okay, let's get to talking about last month.  First let me wipe my forehead and say WHEW!!!  Posting something every day, especially when I was back to school and teaching, was a lot of work!!  I'm glad I did it.  But, don't expect me to keep it up while school is going on.  I did really enjoy featuring my friends' blogs.  I hope I was able to get them some new followers.  I also enjoyed giving away prizes, and was glad that I reached at least my 600 follower goal so that I bumped up the award amount on the Barnes and Noble gift card.  I have decided to try hosting a challenge this month, so if you are interested in participating, it only requires that you pledge to read 4 books (sequels) to participate.  And once again I'll be giving away a Barnes and Noble gift card, but only to people who sign up to participate.  If you want to help me be successful, you can sign up HERE and then go encourage your followers and blogger friends to come try it out too.  I'd love to make it a yearly event!  Unfortunately I've also learned how far behind other bloggers I am, as I really wanted to make a button for the contest, and I even had an idea, but didn't know how to make it.  I need to learn more about Photoshop, and if I even have it on any computers I am able to use.  Not to mention this past week or two Blogger has been really acting funny.  I no longer have my comment link on the drop down menu on my Dashboard, which I loved to be able to go reply to all my comments without having to go back to all my posts to see which  had comments.  And I also can't change any of the layout on my page, so the book that it says I'm reading now I haven't been reading for a couple weeks!!  So I have thought about moving, but then, the money, and not knowing html, just all that scares me away.  So, still dealing with that kind of stuff too. Okay, enough whining from me!  Thanks to all of you who stopped by and helped make my month long blogoversary celebration a good one!  I'm so glad for all my followers.  And now, onto the list of winners for the contests that ended at the end of August:

• The winner of my Featured Blogger The Confounded Cook - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare is:  Lacey T.  I have contacted and heard back from her, so her book will be shipped from The Book Depository this week.
• And the winner of my month long 3rd Blogoversary Celebration for a $40 gift card to Barnes and Noble is:  Erika Anderson Williams!  She has also been contacted and I've heard back from her.  Her gift card will also be in the mail this week.

Thanks again to all my new and old followers!  Keep hanging out!