I SPY by Claire Kendall Book Review

Feb 03, 2025

Hey everyone, Matthew Hemenway here. In this episode, I will be doing a book review for a book called I SPY by Claire Kendall which I read on my Amazon Kindle and listened to on Audible. On the Cover of the Book, YOU DON’T SEE ME, BUT I SEE YOU.... If that does not scare you, then I would not know what would. The book’s theme is that it covers the idea of spying in the digital age. We all know how easy it is to put cameras around. A movie I can think of is Enemy of State where it dealt with the same issues, and it came out in 1998. It talked about how easy it is for the Government to put cameras and little microphones around to record you. Imagine it being more domestic where you are being spied on by your spouse. To me that would be scary, the narrator of the Story named Holly Lawrence is married to a man named Zac who is a control freak. No matter if you go back to the past or the present, Zac is the same and controls Holly as he does Eliza, who is his wife after Holly. Zac ends up being married to 3 women. Later in the story there is a murder, but you will be surprised at who the murderer is.

The story is told in first person, and it flashes back from the past to the present time the story takes place. What stories I would have read or watched it reminds me of is the CW’s DC Arrow verse. If you have seen Arrow, you will know that Oliver is the narrator of the story, and it flashes back to the island in the first 2 seasons to the present time. The reason for the flashbacks is it helped tell us what made Oliver Queen the man he was in the current time of the story. The same is true of Flash, it uses the same story telling style as it takes us to Barry’s past then back to the present. The events in the past helped to influence Barry into the man he became in the current time of the story. If you have seen Super Girl, it has the same styles as the Flash and Arrow. They flash back to Kara’s past and go back to the present time she is in. The past events in Kara’s life helped us understand what made her the person she became in the current time of the story.

Everything that happens in the past helps us to understand what influences Holly into becoming the person she is. She must go into hiding because of the situation she is put in. She changes her name to Helen to protect herself. She must even hide from her best friend Milly because of the situation she is in. She and Milly have a remarkably interesting friendship, to say the least. They tend to do everything together and they tease each other. Holly and Milly would call their men they were dating to each other characters from notable fictional stories. You will recognize their names once you read this book.

There is an Edward Snowden situation where Holly is recruited by MI-5 to help them find a person who is like Edward Snowden. If you remember Edward Snowden, he leaked a bunch of documents online on WikiLeaks and put our national security at risk for the U.S.A. We all know that it is true that the government has too much power, but there are better ways of going about it. You can use other methods than leaking classified information over the internet. You can go to news agencies and being willing to put yourself out there instead of fleeing to Russia. This guy does the same thing in the story; he runs after he leaked classified information for the U.S.A and the British over the internet. He put their national security at risk.

Overall, I give the story a 9 out of 10. I liked how complex it was that it kept you guessing and did not know what was going to happen. The reason I did not give a 10 out 10 is that it starts off slow, but it picks up the pace once you start reading it. I also like that it comes with an Audible version to it as well so you can hear the person’s voice and feel everything that she is going through at the time she is going through it. Like I said in the beginning of this video; the murderer will surprise you because it will not be who you are expecting. If you enjoyed this video, please like it, and subscribe to my channel. Please hit the notification bell at the bottom of this video to be notified of any future videos that come on the channel. Please share this video with your friends and family, so my channel can grow. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Thanks for reading Mattacritic! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Thank you for reading this blog, please consider becoming a patron by going to Patreon to help support me there. You can also go to YouTube to sign up for YouTube memberships by hitting the join button that is in the channel section there or at the bottom of the YouTube video if you choose to watch the YouTube video that is included in this blog. Thank you.

Available for iOS and Android

Join Matthew Hemenway’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Mattacritic

I SPY by Claire Kendall Book Review

Discussion about this post