If You Could See Me Now
Written by Peter Straub
Narrated by Keir Dullea
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Peter Straub
Peter Straub (1943–2022) was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including A Dark Matter, The Talisman, and Black House, which he cowrote with Stephen King. He has won the Bram Stoker Award for his novels Lost Boy Lost Girl and In the Night Room, as well as for his collection 5 Stories. Straub was the editor of the two-volume Library of American anthology The American Fantastic Tale.
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Reviews for If You Could See Me Now
93 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5“July 21, 1955” is a great chapter to start this book!And with the first ‘portion of statement by…”, the story slowly takes on a creepy tone. Each statement foreshadowing that Miles’ return home doesn’t quite go as planned.Which it doesn't. Unfortunately, his madness clouds the perspective of this story, and for me, made this read fairly frustrating. Girls are being killed, and Miles' erratic behavior and crazy utterings, make most folks believe that he is the one doing it. Or is it Polar Bears? Or Duane? Or a malevolent spirit bent on revenge? You have to read through a mush pot of strangeness to get to the conclusion, which for me, wasn't very satisfactory. But, I did hang it to read the whole thing, so that says a little something. Just a strange read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Basics
Miles hasn’t been back to the family farm in Arden, Wisconsin in twenty years. He left behind a reputation as a troublemaker, but he feels Arden is the place to be no matter how the locals hate him. Because he has to keep a promise he made all those years ago.
My Thoughts
Let’s start with Miles. He is the main focus and our narrator, and he shapes everything we see. To the point that I wonder if he is even remotely reliable. There’s a moment around the halfway point that will have you questioning him, and throughout the entire, wild ride, Miles will seem iffy after that, if he wasn’t already to begin with. To me, this is proof positive that Straub knew what he was doing. He knew the story he wanted to tell, one in which even the audience will start to wonder if the angry, hateful locals don’t have a point about Miles.
It’s a wonderful ride to take for that reason. Everyone seems guilty, untrustworthy, and yet so is the very person telling the tale. It lends the story an air of the truly mysterious and suspicious. Straub, I’m learning as I read his work, is a master of tone. And not just with the mystery he puts forth in this novel, but with the way he sets up Miles as this haughty know-it-all faced with a town of plebeians that plague him. The point isn’t who we, the reader, should side with but rather wanting only to see how this butting of heads will go, knowing all the while that it will be explosive.
My one nitpick would be that the book doesn’t really end. It just stops. Like Straub decided he was done writing. That was all he had, so that was it. While the line it ends on is fairly symbolic of Miles’s journey and has a touch of dark comedy to it, it felt kind of cheap after all we just went through.
Straub brings class to horror unlike anyone I’ve ever read. He has literary tricks up his sleeve that will keep sophisticated readers happy throughout. I’m extra happy he’s chosen horror as his go-to genre.
Final Rating
4.5/5