Someone Like Me

Like Carey’s other novels, Someone Like Me begins as one story and slowly twists your expectations to become an entirely new and stranger concept by the end. And like his other novels, each of the characters are wonderfully built cell by cell, bone by bone until they are living, breathing personalities that feel real even within the unreality of the story. Someone Like Me, much like Fellside, starts with no supernatural elements (enough for the reader to wonder if the novel is even going to steer in that direction) and carefully stitches those elements in until the more bizarre aspects have come center stage and taken over almost without the reader realizing the slight of hand that Carey has pulled off. Scary, otherworldly, and human in equally and beautifully crafted proportions, Someone Like Me is another home run by one of my favorite authors.

Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey had me curious through the entire book, but not necessarily in a good way. The book was expensive, so I felt like I had to finish it. The author went into way too much description in a way that only made the book thicker. Parts of the book was left without answers. It was certainly not the best book I've read and would recommend only to someone who enjoys reading nearly 500 pages of senseless description. Sorry Mr. Carey...

Gotta watch that Mike Carey. He's a cagey fella. Grabs your attention with some shocking, life threatening domestic ultra-violence, then lulls you into a false sense of security with passages of everyday activities only to blow your mind with one completely insane multiversal time-loop morphing body-snatching doppel-ghost head slam after another until you feel you might be crazy or caught up in the shuddering shadow realm of schizophrenic madness yourself. Yes that. And I loved it.Nuff said, I think. Oh, except the chapter headings are really cool too. Images instead of titles, each representing one of the character POVS. I liked 'em.Now nuff said. Thank you, Mr. Carey, for another fascinating thrill ride!

No spoilers!I fell in love with this author after reading his other books; The Girl With All the Gifts and The Boy on the Bridge so when this book came out I snatched it up ASAP! I was not disappointed. He takes life, turns it on its head and makes an engaging and entertaining story. Well written and believable characters. Satisfying ending.

Like many others, I discovered this author through that marvel that is The Girl With All The Gifts, and there's no question that Carey is a gifted writer when it comes to character building. His characters are never cliche', or stereotypes. From zombie girls to autistic boys, from abused wives to mentally ill girls, he is courageous in tackling the harder characters, and he does it invariably successfully. My issue is with the story. It has a lot of supernatural in it, but he can't really make much sense of it. His supernatural has some really complicated and contradictory rules, to the point of turning right down silly. I wish Carey would think his stories out with the same care and skill he uses for his characters, like he did with The Girl With All The Gifts. I will keep following this author, I just don't think this was one of his best. I hope readers who never read other books by this author will not be put off by this book, because if it caused them to miss better books like TGWATG, they would do an unforgivable disservice to themselves.

I stayed all day. No idea where it was going, but it was worth it. So very worth the day.

While this book reminded me of Stephen King's "Rose Madder," it's still a completely different story.Carey really knows how to bring each and every character to life. And like King, he makes you feel as though these strange and horrific events, though supernatural, could actually happen. That's a talent of the true horror/thriller master.I loved "The Girl with All the Gifts" and "The Boy on the Bridge." I'll be reading "Fellside" next.

A thriller with some sci-fi / horror thrown in. It is on the long side, but I disagree with reviews saying it was slow. I was gripped the entire time. The ending didn’t quite do it for me, but it wrapped up all the threads. A solid and original read.

Weighing in at 500 pages, Someone Like Me presents the reader a considerable challenge. To decide if you’d like it, having enjoyed M. R. Carey’s previous The Girl with All the Gifts or Fellside is not a surefire indication. There is a blurb on the back cover from Lauren Beukes that’s a clue; the flavor of Someone Like Me is very much like The Shining Girls, including the setting in a run-down city in middle-America, time travel, serial killers, and paranormal features. If also you liked the notorious WTF ending to Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes, you will have a good time with this one.I was less happy with the setting, a very downscale section of Pittsburgh called Larimer. It’s daring of an English author to attempt to create American characters and Carey went to a lot of trouble to use appropriate details and language (including a can of Sunoco gasoline), though a few idioms such as “fit for purpose” “lived rough” and “slept rough” and “washing-up gloves” seemed out of place. It was also gratifying that the English edition uses American spelling and punctuation—I wish American publishers would extend the same courtesy to English authors. I caught only one distinctive mark of Pittsburgh dialect: Fran’s father addresses her as “doll baby.” But somehow the setting did not quite work for me. I wonder if Carey would have done better artistically putting the story in Liverpool, with lots of Scouse dialect.Maybe the principal paranormal device, the Skadegamutc, determined the American setting, though even then Canada or New England would be more likely. Fran Watts, a sixteen year old girl, was kidnapped a decade ago and kept at a derelict motel by a mad killer called the Shadowman. She was found, apparently unharmed, but accompanied by a defective memory, a mammoth case of PTSD and a companion visible only to Fran, an armor-clad sword-carrying fox (actually a vixen) named Lady Jinx. At school she befriends Zac, whose mother Liz is a victim of domestic abuse by her violent ex Marc. But in the very opening chapter, as Marc attacks her, Liz suddenly discovers superpowers of self-defense, and gives him a what-for with a broken bottle.Though invisible companions, paranormal abilities, and the living dead are familiar items in fantasy fiction, Carey gives them new and engaging features. Nothing ultimately is explained, but if you believe in theories of multiple universes and that time is only an illusion, you have some notion of where everything is coming from. There is also a thoroughly unpleasant villain, but one that you will sometimes cheer for, because some of the victims quite deserve what happens to them.I fear that I must rank Someone Like Me below GWATG and Fellside. The principal character of the former is more attractive, though Fran and her vulpine escort were great fun. And the spiritual issues in Fellside were much deeper and moving. Zac and Fran make a great couple, but their estrangement felt dictated by the plot rather than being consistent with character. I am very annoyed by the "plot-driven" versus "character-driven" distinction: both should work in harmony. Artistically, the book is too long. Writing teachers tell us to use dialogue rather than narration to inform the reader, but sometimes it would be better to have a paragraph of narrative instead of two pages of less than sparkling dialogue to convey the reader the same information. The final violent thriller conclusion was necessary, but it went on too long. Cutting this book by a quarter would lose little.M. R. Carey continues to be the best contemporary author to occupy the borderland between fantasy and “realistic” fiction and his sheer inventiveness is thoroughly on display. If you enjoy this genre of literature, even with a bit of flab this is a very good read.

I have read and enjoyed a couple of M.R. Carey books so I was interested and excited about reading Someone Like Me.Our main character is Liz Kendall. Liz finally fights back when her abusive ex-husband's temper rises, and yet she is left confused by her actions-- it felt almost as if someone else was acting in her place and controlling her body, so she seeks psychiatric help. Across town, Fran Watts is dealing with her own trauma - after being kidnapped as a young child, she now has bizarre hallucinations of a protector called Lady Jinx, a talking fox. These characters come together when Liz's son, Zac, becomes close to Fran.This book wasn’t what I had expected. I expected children with magical powers and things being blown up and a lot of violence but instead, this is a whimsical horror story about loss of control and the things your mind does after a tragedy.As with Carey’s other books, the story flows well and the writing is easy to follow. The characters are well developed and easy to understand so I am not sure why this book fell a bit short for me. I found myself wanting to finish it quickly, so I could move on to something else. The imaginary talking fox character freaked me out and I found it a bit strange. The book was quite a bit longer than I think it needed to be and the pace was quite slow.

Mike Carey is an extremely versatile writer - although most of his novels have an element of fantastical realism, the characterization and plots vary significantly and so I can understand why someone who read The Girl with All the Gifts may feel disappointed with this novel. They are very different.The opening of this novel for me felt too long and meandering. In establishing the 3 main characters: the main adult, Liz, is necessarily dull to facilitate a later plot development. However, this doesn’t help to make the novel opening engaging. The two teen characters are well drawn, but the imaginary friend (fox) feels overplayed at this point. I would have appreciated more ruthless editing in the opening third. As an English reader, I also didn’t feel convinced by the American setting although I can see why he chose to use it.However, once the main plot line kicks in, this becomes a real page turner: Carey pulls all the threads of the story together very effectively (including the fox) to create an engaging thriller with interesting plot twists and conclusion. Overall, I've given it a 4 as I do think the opening is weak compared to his other novels.

I've been a fan of MR (Mike) Carey since the Felix Castor series and hail him as a master of the twisty and tense plot. He is not always an easy read; he puts his characters in hard places and gets inside the heads of some people you'd rather not know. This is absolutely the case for Someone Like Me. His characters are exquisitely well drawn, Beth in particular; her descent step by logical step into monsterdom is exquisitely documented but uncomfortable as she is initially a sympathetic character. There's weird stuff, of course and that just makes the plot twistier. This is the first book of his I've read with a US setting but it seeemd to work well.Another great story and I think MR Carey is on his way to grandmaster

My daughter read this first and we spent most of the time that I was reading it discussing the plot, characters and themes. We both raced through it needing to know what would happen next. I loved the way it went from one character to another. Would recommend but be aware that there are some upsetting scenes at the beginning if, like us, you have had an abusive relationship. It definitely worked well within the story without being stuck on that theme and I look forward to the next M.R. Carey book. Definitely five stars. I would have given it more if I could.