I usually cannot stand books with characters who're idiots or plots that rely on those characters being idiots, but this one wasn't so bad. In fact, I had a damn good time. I've met single-cell organisms with more going on upstairs than reporter and all around doofus Wendy, but Harlan Coben made her extremely easy to read about. There's no way she could've put any of the ending together by herself, but the journey was twisty enough that it kept my attention.

Oh, and I know Coben has a long-running series, but it was refreshing to read a thriller that wasn't part of a fucking series.

I made several updates while reading this book. I said I knew who Chynna was. I was wrong. I said I knew everything about Dan Mercer. I was, again, very wrong. In fact, the only thing I was right about what the level of stupidity of the characters. The plot was convoluted, but not in a bad way. I had to suspend my disbelief once or twice (more on that in the Spoiler Discussion), but what story doesn't call for a bit of suspension?

In summation: No reason you won't enjoy reading this one. If nothing else, it's a fine way to blow a dozen hours, that is, if you're slow reader like me. Someone like Shelbs or Kellswould likely read this in an hour or so.

Final Judgment: Stupid is as stupid does, but, here, stupid is sure fun to watch.

Spoiler Discussion: Wherein I spoil Caught, by Harlan Coben.

Watch out! Spoilers are all over the place.


I was hesistant to read this book. I am not really into books that feature rape. Luckily I found out this book didn't feature rape, just a girl accidentally saying yes to people when asked vaguely about something.

Though, really that girl is an idiot. She could have fixed it days ago, fixed it all, but she just let it all come and grow. : I feel for Carter, he didn't do anything (though he is mean and rotten to girls), but no one deserves a rape charge, no one deserves to be accused of such a thing. It will break his whole future, and apparently our lovely lead girl Sam, doesn't give a damn about it or didn't think about it.
I liked Sam in the beginning of the book, though ok, there are better ways to get your best friend to love you, and those don't involve flirting (and potentially having sex) with another dude. Yes that might make him jealous, but also it might make him drop you.
And she should really think about, before saying yes to stuff, I know you are drunk (stupid), but atleast try to focus when people see you step out of a room, all bruised and your top is ripped. But nooo, miss Sam is drunk and totally crushed because Carter just told her she is ugly.

Thank Lord she just told the girls about it, and they are feeling all guilty (good). Though now they are planning just to continue with the whole deal, because, hey, who cares about those rumors when he is off to California in a few days.. and he has had a long time to reign the school as if he is God... People that is not how it works and that is not how you should think. :

And wow that Dad is like super overprotective, it is just sad and pathetic. Your daughter has everything planned out, and you just rip everything to shreds and don't even listen or hold an adult conversation over her choices? Like what?

Wow, yippee in the end she confesses to everyone that it wasn't true, no one got raped. And that she didn't start the rumor, but that she also didn't do anything to stop it. She is sorry. Well sorry, is a bit too late girl. If you were honest, you would have gotten to keep Nick, now you have no Nick. Now you have nothing.

I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone. Unless you like a character who is quite dumb and annoying.

Finally! I cannot tell you how happy I am to finish this book. Instead of 10 hours, the audiobook felt like it was twice as long and I had it in 2x speed for most of it.

I can imagine that when this book came out in 1999, it was fresh and groundbreaking. If I had read it back there, I would have definitely been intrigued. But as a 2011 PNR reader, I can only tell you that this book bored me beyond tears and I couldn't stand the dumb characters and an overwrought dialogue that would go on and on repeating the same things.

Let's start with the heroine, who has the distinction of being the most TSTL heroine I've ever read about in my life. Why, you may ask? Just select an option from the ones below (contains some spoilers):
A - Left the hero's house when he was disabled to spend the day in the same place as the evil villains
B - After being told that a woman is murdered, she wanders on her own in the forest and falls sleep
C - Decides the hero is not for her even though he's the only man that can touch her (she's telepathic and can read minds just by touching normal people)
D - After almost getting killed, she wanders the forest at night half naked and strikes a conversation with a guy she doesn't know
E - Tries to sacrifice herself several times to save the hero even though everybody and their mother has told her that if she dies, he dies too.
F - All of the above.

Believe it or not, the answer is F: all of the above. This woman doesn't have the brain God gave a mosquito and I just wanted the villain to crack her skull and put us out of our misery.

Then there was the asinine plot. Villains would come out of nowhere and they caught the very powerful Carpathians with their pants down Every.Single.Time. You would think that such a powerful race would be prepared to be hunted and would keep safeguards in place but the villains basically did everything they wanted and the Carpathians couldn't stop them.

The prose is affected and over the top with gems such as "velvet sheath of fire." Over and over, we learned that "Carpathians women were the light to the male's darkness...his other half. Without her, the beast would slowly consume the man until he was complete darkness." If I had been doing a drinking game every time the work 'darkness' showed up, I had been roaring drunk by the end.

Overall, all I can say is that I'm glad that it's over.