Kara dreams of becoming a professional baker. When she
has the chance to enter a baking competition that would help
her reach her dream, she can't wait to compete. However,
since her big sister died and her father left, Kara's mom has
been overly protective and doesn't want her to go. While
Kara schemes of ways to get to the out-of-state contest, she
keeps getting mysterious notes from someone who is watching
her. Someone who might know more about her past than she
realizes.
FROM WHERE I WATCH YOU is a delicious young adult suspense.
Kara is a dynamic protagonist with an interesting
personality. The reader gets flashbacks to Kara's early
childhood throughout the story, and the flashbacks
demonstrate a specific kind of family (especially with her sister)
relationship that Kara struggles with, even presently as far
as her mother is concerned. The only real passion she has is
baking, and though she is excellent at it, her mother
doesn't support her. I love how realistic the relationships
are, particularly the one between Kara and her dead sister
that proves not all is forgiven, or understood, when one
party is no longer present.
As much as I enjoy Kara and her story, I do wish there had
been a little more emphasis on the suspense part with the
notes. The notes are definitely creepy, and Grogan does an
excellent job of presenting several possible suspects, but
the action/suspense around them doesn't really pick up until
closer to the end.
FROM WHERE I WATCH YOU won't leave readers with a sweet
tooth, but it will leave them with a happily full stomach of
realistic characterization and a good story. I will
definitely be on the lookout for more from Shannon Grogan.
Sixteen-year-old Kara is about to realize her dream of becoming a professional baker. Beautifully designed and piped, her cookies are masterpieces, but also her ticket out of rainy Seattle—if she wins the upcoming national baking competition and its scholarship prize to culinary school in California. Kara can no longer stand the home where her family lived, laughed, and ultimately imploded after her mean-spirited big sister Kellen died in a drowning accident. Kara’s dad has since fled, and her mom has turned from a high-powered attorney into a nutty holy-rolling Christian fundamentalist peddling “Soul Soup” in the family café. All Kara has left are memories of better times. But the past holds many secrets, and they come to light as Kara faces an anonymous terror: Someone is leaving her handwritten notes. Someone who knows exactly where she is and what she’s doing. As the notes lead her to piece together the events that preceded Kellen’s terrible, life-changing betrayal years before, she starts to catch glimpses of her dead sister: an unwelcome ghost in filthy Ugg boots. If Kara doesn’t figure out who her stalker is, and soon, she could lose everything. Her chance of escape. The boy she’s beginning to love and trust. Even her life.
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