Who’s Watching You? – Upload* by Collin Tobin

Since his mother’s sudden and violent death, Jay’s existence has concentrated around three things: his father’s spiraling withdrawal into himself; his best friend, Bennie; and his search for exploitable Wi-Fi hotspots. When hunting such hotspots leads Jay to stumble onto and unwittingly download video of a crime in progress, he turns to Bennie for help. Bennie – a wheelchair-bound hacker who surfs raves once a week with Jay’s help and practically lives in the computer lab he’s created in his parents’ basement – is eager to apply his equipment and skills to investigating the mystery Jay has presented him. The further Bennie and Jay burrow into the conspiracy they discover, the more entangled they become in its eventual life-changing outcome.

Upload is a Thriller that lives up to the expectations of that genre. Although the main characters are teens, I wouldn’t consider it a YA book. While young adults will enjoy it, adults of any age will also find it engaging. It starts with a bang and moves at a rapid clip to the conclusion – through which it cruises at a leisurely pace. Tobin includes violent scenes as a means of conveying the depth of the evil and depravity of the antagonists, and finds a way to make them graphic but “acceptable.”

All the characters are believable: teens who aren’t miniature adults and who don’t yet have life figured out; adults dealing as best they can with what life throws at them; adults who are evil incarnate and others who’ve been caught in their own surrender to evil; people who rise to heights of courage they’re unaware they possess; and people discovering love, lust, and infatuation. As with real people, combinations of those things are found in some of Tobin’s characters and the struggles among them are portrayed in all their interactions.  

Tobin’s writing style flows almost effortlessly while simultaneously dragging the reader headlong from one startling discovery to the next. His analogies are familiar but far from standard. “He hugged the circumference of the tree like a ziptie ratcheted to the tightest notch.” and  “Bennie shifted slightly to wave, and a long knife of pain impaled his very core.” are just two examples. He’s also pretty adept at conveying a wide range of emotions as his characters experience them.

Upload is a book you don’t want to miss out on.

3.5 of 5 Stars

310 Pages

Thriller

Published December 2012 by Red Adept Publishing

Collin Tobin's Website