This puzzling and intriguing debut is packed with secrets. It’s told in past and present tense...with two main characters—Kate AKA Evie and Jim (although it looks like Jim became Bill in the final book 😂 ).

It instantly pulled me, but it took a bit to get settled into the story. Once I did, I was swept away in all the suspense and wild mystery. Trying to figure out what was going on!! The author keeps us in the dark about a lot of things, but we know that Jim snuck Kate out of Melbourne and changed her name to Evie in order to protect her...at least that’s what he told her. Now they’re hiding away in a remote area. Evie feels more like she’s in prison than being protected. He locks her in her room at night; he doesn’t allow her access to the computer/internet; and he makes secret phone calls. It drove me crazy trying to figure out who Jim was! Can he be trusted? Is he really looking out for Evie or does he have heinous intentions?

The chapters in the past tense lead us up to an accident in Melbourne, involving Evie and her boyfriend. She claims she has no memory of the incident, so she relies on Jim to help her remember. But she’s convinced that he’s manipulating her memories and hiding information from her. Is he...and why?

Who do we believe? At times Evie seemed reliable and I thought Jim was sneaky and unstable, but then the dynamics would shift. So many different scenarios ran through my mind, as I impatiently read to the finish. This ending stunned me. It was clever, tidy and incredible!

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Publishing Group/G.P. Putnam's Sons and JP Pomare for this digital ARC, in exchange for my honest review!

My Rating: 4 ⭐️’s
Published: March 5th 2019 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pages: 368

Excerpts:

“There is a stranger inside everyone, an animal that doesn’t think but responds only to its instincts and impulses. Some people will let the stranger take over once, possibly twice in their entire life. It’s only afterward, when your body has cooled down and your mind has returned, that you realize you had no control, that you realize something else took you over.”

Evie wakes from a drug-induced state and finds herself in a remote beach town in New Zealand with her uncle Jim. She is certain of only two things: her name is not Evie and Jim is not her uncle. How good is that hook! It reeled me in completely and I stress read this simply HAVING TO KNOW what was going to happen. If you like your psychological thrillers taut, twisty and tantilising then get your hands on Call Me Evie.

This book and I just did *not* vibe, and that's a shame because I had high hopes. I could not get into the writing style - the 'after' chapters were clearly written with a stylistic choice in mind, compared to the 'before' chapters, and I just could not get past the stilted nature of the writing. The story was good, I thought the plot was something fresh and new (as opposed to, say, an unreliable middle-aged woman who drinks too much and supposedly sees a murder - sound familiar?), but so much of the writing felt like filler and I think, had this book been maybe 100 pages shorter, the same story could've been told in a more succinct manner. For a debut, I will say that it's promising, and the author does twists the right way so I would be interested in reading more of his work, but for now I have to say that this was very middle of the road and probably won't occupy space in my memory for much longer.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a solid three star book all the way through, until the final batch of reveals/twists.
This book is an odd one because it is labelled as general adult fiction but Kate/Evie is 17 and so it has a definite YA feel to it. I suppose this shows how the boundaries between the two merge.
Call Me Evie is a compelling novel about the vulnerability of memories, and the atmosphere of it is quite creepy overall. The chapters alternate between "before" and "after" and the two narratives converge as we discover more about the mysterious pair with a secret past. It's interesting being as clueless as the main character, and there are many questions going through the reader's mind throughout.
I enjoyed the creepy locals aspect because the reader takes on Kate's own suspicions about being watched by them. Can they be trusted? Are they on her side? Do they know who she is?
The main theme of the book is manipulation of memory, but it also has a lot about small things triggering bigger things, and how events in our past can shape us. Both of the main characters have been shaped and affected by their past, and the bath tub memory is a very interesting one that does not become significant until later on. I enjoyed the ending of the book and I thought the reveals at the end were very effective and changed the meaning of the story and one of the character's actions.
This is definitely a book that will read differently the second time round.

I've tried to read this book at least 3 times before and each time I fell asleep less than 3 chapters in! I finally pushed through and marathoned it on audio this morning, and now I have closure and know for sure that this just didn't work for me.

I don't want to be too harsh given it's a debut, and it's a fairly decent thriller if you don't read a lot of them. I'd recommend it for people looking to get into mystery/thrillers who aren't sure of their tastes yet, or readers who want a mystery that's not overly gory or disturbing. It's not life changing but it'd be a decent plane/train/boat read (whenever travel is a thing again.....)

I typically love when thrillers tackle gaslighting and the manipulation of memory, so I'm bummed that the writing didn't work for me here. The writing is super dry and the audiobook only exacerbated this - though given I've tried to read it in ebook format twice before, I know it's not purely down to the audiobook narrators! I wanted more emotion and atmosphere from the writing - even if that "atmosphere" were a foggy amnesiac haze.

I thought the revenge porn, victim blaming, and friend's predator father were all strong elements of this story, and I wish we'd had more discourse about this. I wish we'd explored more of these elements and less of being stuck in the cabin in rural NZ! I was never entertained or invested in the mystery of what Kate did, who Jim was, and who was in on it. And tbh I think it would've been more entertaining had Jim actually been

Spoiler

Willow's dad

....

3 stars. A forgettable debut for someone who reads a lot of thrillers, but I've loved everything JP Pomare has written since this and I'm excited to see what else he writes in the future!

A great twisty enthralling thriller, set in both Australia and New Zealand.