<b>Read Completed 7/9/24 |</b> 4 - 4.25 stars
This was a BookTok recommendation finally gone right! I really enjoyed this thriller and it was just what I needed to have a break from the many popcorn thrillers that are popular now (even from authors who didn't use to be so popcorn-y). The beginning was a little bit slower paced for me, but it had an underlying feeling of dread and creepiness that I really, really enjoyed. This was a very solid read for me and it really could have gone above and beyond by having just one more connection in the end, but I still enjoyed the read. I really appreciated going in blind, and I won't have major spoilers here, but if you're okay knowing a little about the book, proceed: 

After Aaron's wife is killed in a random shooting, he feels slightly haunted by her ghost and goes on a question to uncover a mystery -- a series of cold cases -- that his wife has been investigating. He finds pieces of her past that he didn't even know about, and things that she specifically lied to him about, but he ends up going down the rabbit hole to see what exactly he didn't know about his wife and why she was looking into these cases of murdered girls. 

This was definitely a slow burn thriller -- I guess it's actually supposed to be horror, but it's like a horror thriller -- that had some really neat literary devices and motifs that I loved picking up on. The authors uses the title "come with me" in several different ways and each time it popped up, I got chills. There's a lot of use of the color red that made the book vivid and movie-like. I love when that comes effortlessly and I don't feel like I'm in high school English class. Even though it wasn't like it at all, it kind of had a Sixth Sense vibe. There was just something about it that gave me the feeling of that dread creeping in... and that a ghost could turn up at any moment. 

The mystery was really fun to unravel. I actually really liked that Aaron was totally and outsider to this. Allison had already done a lot of research, but he didn't know anything about it, so he picks up where she left off as best as he can. He's finding out what she was even investigating in the first place. I liked that it wasn't a detective, but he was still figuring out clues, and it wasn't the person so closely tied to everything either. It allowed for further digging and also detachment. 

This does have a slightly paranormal theme to it that I also enjoyed and didn't know if it was going to be paranormal or not. Aaron believes that Allison is lightly haunting him -- lights turning on, feelings of someone else in the room, etc. It's not scary, but it's lightly creepy and gives a nice, unsettling vibe to it all. There is an explanation and I'm not sure I loved it, but it was also kind of neat. I think the one thing that I really wanted from the ending was for... (minor spoiler and MAJOR spoiler in tags here)

Allison's death to be somehow connected.  It never seemed to be, but I guess I wanted that to tie back in somehow -- she was investigating something there, someone knew her, she wanted herself to get killed, there was some reason why she tried to put herself in harm's way -- but there wasn't. It was just a senseless act, and maybe that made it even more sad. But it did spur things into action without us knowing it of Aaron wanting to pick up her investigation to then be with Allison in the afterlife. Eh eh eh, it was okay. I'm so-so on how I feel about that, but the author definitely did foreshadow all of this and include clues along the way. We just thought it was Allison's ghost and not Aaron's.

I am definitely glad I read this and this will probably be in my top books of the year in some capacity. It was just super refreshing to take a break from the vibe of other thrillers, and I don't usually get along with horror, so I'm just really happy I enjoyed this one.