Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.
Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.
As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking.
Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.
Around the middle of last year this seemed to be "The Book" that everyone was either anticipating or already reading. (FOMO)Fear of missing out is what sent me to request a review copy. My request was very politely rejected, with a lovely note from the publisher telling me that their remaining review copies were being saved for book sellers or reviewers who write for major publications. I should have let that be the end of it, and we'd all be better off if I had. It's rare that someone declines my offer to read a book and that must be what made me even more determined to read it. This happened to me before where I was declined, requested elsewhere, got the book, and regretted reading it. That should have taught me a lesson. Next time I will take as a sign that the book is just not for me. This book sure was not!
It starts off well enough. There's a killer on the loose. The Campus killer to be exact, who has murdered Charlie's friend Maddy, and left her wracked with guilt because they had been together earlier that evening. Charlie left her alone at the bar, where she was never seen alive again. Charlie, unable to cope, has decided she must leave the university IMMEDIATELY. In fact she can not even wait a couple of days for her boyfriend to drive her. She decides instead to take a ride with a total stranger, who as it turns out may or may not be the murderer. This begins a long and boring car ride broken up by a series of hallucinations that Charlie calls "seeing movies" in her head.
As someone who has a strong dislike for books or movies that suck you in and then say oops that was all just a dream, I find that I am equally disinterested in hallucinations as I am in dream sequences. The long car trip with only two characters, neither of which interested me reminded me of why I didn't like the Jeepers Creepers movie much, although they at least were not hallucinating.
You may enjoy this book more than I did, plenty of people have loved it.
2 out of 5 stars.
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