Name: Sarah Campbell's review of The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
Item: The Nothing Man
Rating: 5
Author: Sarah Campbell

Catherine Ryan Howard

A brilliantly twisty thriller from the critically acclaimed author of Rewind, an Irish Times bestseller.

The Nothing Man

I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him ... At the age of twelve, Eve Black was the only member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who destroyed her life. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just started reading The Nothing Man--the true-crime memoir Eve has written about her efforts to track down her family's killer. As he turns each page, his rage grows. Because Jim's not just interested in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man. Jim soon beings to realize how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first ...

Sarah Campbell

A friend told me recently that when my daughter reaches the age I was on the night the Nothing Man entered our home, I will see how innocent and small and young that is, how much of a child remains even right on the cusp of their becoming a teen, and I will finally understand how young I was. She says if I haven't already, I will forgive myself then. I don't know about that. We'll see. 

Nearly nineteen years ago, Jim Doyle bought me a ticket to a planet where I had to live by myself. I didn't want to go but I had no choice in the matter. I was too young and too numb to reçall the journey, leaving me utterly lost, disoriented, and unable to find my way back. I'm still here. Until recently, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be forever. 

But something unexpected has happened. A visitor has arrived and he knows the way back. He says hell take me with him. We leave soon. I'm finally getting to go home.

“You bought me a ticket to a planet where I lived by myself.”

They are boring, ordinary failures of men — not always men, of course, but predominately — who can't even manage to live, love, and process their feelings in a world where the rest of us have all managed to master it by the time we're in our teens. These are no dark magicians. They have no special skills. People seem to forget that we know their names because they got caught. In fact, the only remarkable thing about them is what they took from the world: their victims. It’s their names we should know."

Jeri

I read this in less then five hours, through a headache, and cancelled all plans that I had in order to dive deep into it. And I have zero regrets.

This book was so far out of my comfort zone. I'm more of a lighthearted/rom com or emotional book reader. Reading from a perspective of a serial killer who is reading his survivors retellings of his crimes was so interesting.

I needed to stay up late to figure out what was going on. I refused to go to bed until I got to the conclusion. 

I recommended this book to my loved one, and then promptly revealed the entire plot to them. I fear I'm my own worst enemy.

I would love to find more from this subgenre. I'm a fan for survivors getting an "Enough" JLO moment.

I read this in less then five hours, through a headache, and cancelled all plans that I had in order to dive deep into it. And I have zero regrets.
This book was so far out of my comfort zone. I'm more of a lighthearted/rom com or emotional book reader. Reading from a perspective of a serial killer who is reading his survivors retellings of his crimes was so interesting.
I needed to stay up late to figure out what was going on. I refused to go to bed until I got to the conclusion. 
I'm a Eve stan. 
I recommended this book to my loved one, and then promptly revealed the entire plot to them. I fear I'm my own worst enemy.
I would love to find more from this subgenre. I'm a fan for survivors getting an "Enough" JLO moment.

 

rumbledethumps

This was a blind-date book, and at first, I thought, "Ugh. Not another serial killer novel." But this one is a bit different, both in its style and its content. There is a frame narrative, where the killer is reading the book written by one of his victims who escaped. I also liked that the killer is not an evil genius with elaborate rituals and kill sites, and who is not always three steps ahead of the police.

At the age of twelve, Eve Black was the only member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who destroyed her life. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just started reading The Nothing Man--the true-crime memoir Eve has written about her efforts to track down her family's killer. As he turns each page, his rage grows. Because Jim's not just interested in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man. Jim soon begins to realize how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first ...

Marloes

I thoroughly enjoyed the story about The Nothing Man. The book is set in Ireland (mainly Cork and Dublin) and seeing familiar places and locations in this book, really made me appreciate it even more, but the ending was a bit lacklustre to me.

Maureen McMahon

This was one of the most unique thrillers I’ve ever read. Told from the POV of a Serial Killer reading about themselves was fascinating and captivating, I was thinking about this book constantly in the moments I wasn’t reading it. But my favorite part of this book was how serial killers and the obsession around them was handled. This book points out all of the flaws and issues that True Crime seems to have and refuses to glamorize the concept of a serial killer. The Nothing Man was a brilliant name and anyone who likes true crime needs to read this book. 
The only flaw it had was it wasn’t as creepy or suspenseful as I wanted it to be. 

· · THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER · · _______________________________ I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him... You've just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man. The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first...

The No. 1 Irish Times bestseller. A brilliantly twisty blend of true crime and psychological thriller

Lauren Attaway

This was my first Catherine Ryan Howard book and now I want to read her other three as soon as I can. I loved this book. In 2018, I read I'll Be Gone in the Dark, and it as my mother would say "scared the mess out of me." About a month after I finished that book, Joseph DeAngelo was arrested. I don't know what I was thinking when I picked up The Nothing Man and thought that sounds kind of like a book that I read at night in bed and scared myself with for weeks. The Nothing Man features a true crime story-within-a-story setup that is so popular right now but this book does what so many like it did not for me, and makes me anxious about making sure all of my doors/windows are locked. It so effectively creepy while also pointing out that while we consume these stories we need to always, always remember the victims and have respect for the people who can't put down the creepy story when they're afraid because they lived it. One of my favorite thrillers in 2020 by a long stretch!

Johanna

Moon of Pages

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was so original!

Adrianna Giunta

This was awesome! This honestly reads like a true crime book and I enjoyed hearing the perspective of both Eve the survivor and Jim reading the book as the nothing man himself. This one definitely lived up to the hype for me!

Casie Blevins

Thoroughly enjoyable and unique read. I loved the concept of a book written to ensnare the killer and I loved the format of third person and first person, and two different fonts and 'types' of paper to give a visual distinction. Brilliant. 
 I will definitely read more from this author.

Jeri &
The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

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The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard