The Mentor — Angela Douglas
Title: The Mentor
Author: Angela Douglas
Genre: Psychological Thriller | Mystery | Suspense
Format: eARC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ — 3.5/5
Synopsis
University professor Karla Dobbs's life changes dramatically when her novel becomes a bestseller and a movie adaptation is put into production.
There's only one problem.
A former student, Natalie Silva, claims Karla's successful novel was inspired by her unpublished work, and that the tragedy behind the story was real.
Natalie demands that Karla stop the movie before it can further exploit what happened, but Karla believes there's little she can do. The rights have already been signed away, Natalie is expected to return to Brazil, and soon the world itself is shutting down as the COVID pandemic begins.
Then strange things start happening.
Through an online mentorship program, Karla begins receiving increasingly disturbing submissions from an anonymous writer known as The Protégé. The writing is personal. Intimate. Sometimes seemingly predictive.
And when people around Karla begin to die, she realizes the story she used to build her success might have consequences she never anticipated.
My Thoughts
There are certain things I really don't enjoy encountering unexpectedly in books, and apparently I've discovered another one:
COVID lockdown.
I somehow completely missed that The Mentor was set during the pandemic.
It said lockdown, but I was thinking about... maybe something else. 😂
BUT...
We move forward.
Because despite that, I actually thought this was a pretty good psychological thriller, especially when it came to the questions it raises about trauma, ownership and who has the right to tell someone else's story.
Karla is a university professor struggling financially while also taking care of her elderly mother, with whom she has a rather difficult relationship.
And Karla herself?
Well...
Let's just say I don't think she's winning any Miss Congeniality competitions anytime soon.
She has quite a difficult personality, and I never particularly liked her. Which, considering some of the decisions she makes, probably isn't entirely accidental.
Karla's life changes when her novel becomes incredibly successful and a movie adaptation is put into motion.
There's just one teeny tiny problem:
The story wasn't entirely hers.
Karla took inspiration from the unpublished work of one of her former students, Natalie. Natalie isn't even living in the country anymore, so Karla seems to think she's relatively safe from any consequences.
Except Natalie comes back, and she has something rather important to tell Karla:
The story is based on real events.
She wants the movie stopped, otherwise there will be consequences.
But Natalie is supposed to return to Brazil, the world goes into lockdown, the movie rights have already been signed away, and Karla more or less convinces herself that there isn't much she can do.
Surely everything will be fine.
Oh well...
Everything was NOT fine.
Because soon everything goes completely to Cheetos.
We've got stalking, strange incidents, bodies piling up, and increasingly disturbing emails and submissions from someone supposedly participating in Karla's online mentorship program.
At first, everything is confusing even for Karla because the whole world is shutting down, everyone is isolated and everything already feels strange and uncertain.
But it doesn't take very long before she realizes this isn't simply pandemic paranoia.
Someone is coming for her.
And Karla is beginning to understand that perhaps taking somebody else's story and turning it into her own success wasn't quite as consequence-free as she'd imagined.
Who Owns Someone Else's Trauma?
What I found most interesting about this book was actually the subject underneath the thriller:
Who owns a traumatic story?
What happens when somebody takes another person's tragedy and tells it from an outsider's perspective, especially when the people who actually lived through it never consented to having their experiences turned into entertainment?
It becomes even more uncomfortable when the movie adaptation starts portraying the tragedy in a way that may be very different from what actually happened.
I thought the book handled that aspect really well because a story can look completely different depending on who's telling it.
And when you're dealing with somebody else's real trauma, that difference matters.
Add the increasingly dark events surrounding Karla and the trail of bodies appearing around her, and there was definitely enough here to keep me curious about exactly what had happened and who was behind everything.
The COVID Setting
Unfortunately, the COVID setting really affected my personal enjoyment.
That's entirely a me thing, rather than something I think the author did badly.
I simply don't enjoy returning to that period through fiction, especially when lockdown and the pandemic play such a noticeable role in the circumstances of the story.
Had I known beforehand, I probably wouldn't have picked this one up, and I think that prevented me from becoming as engrossed in the thriller as I otherwise might have been.
Final Thoughts
Still, The Mentor was a good psychological thriller, and I really appreciated some of the subjects it explored.
The mystery surrounding Karla kept me curious, but it was the examination of stolen stories, consent and the ethics of turning someone else's trauma into entertainment that ultimately stood out most to me.
It definitely gave me something to think about.
And perhaps the most important lesson here is:
If you're going to steal somebody's unpublished story...
Actually, no.
Just don't do that...
3.5⭐
ARC Disclaimer
Thank you to EOB Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. All opinions are my own.
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