Rating: 
Summary: Eerie....
Review: Having been an avid Stephen King fan since I was 13, I thought I should try reading Straub. I was very pleased that I did. From the first page, I was hooked. Miles Teagarden, because of his obsession and love for his cousin, Alison, is drawn into a world of suspicion and danger. And, we are along with him. Returning to Arden, Miles finds himself a suspect in recent murders of young girls. As he awaits the day when Alison returns, he faces much internal conflict and outside interference. It makes for a very exciting and terrifying read.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't agree with the other reviewers
Review: I was not convinced. Having tried Mr. X (it had such a "must have" look about it) and found it seriously wanting, again the main character is not persuasive enough. He actually sounds like a complete jerk. Maybe it would have been more convincing written in third person but as is.......... Not as bad as Mr. X which was a total dissapointment but definititely much ado about very little!
Rating:
Summary: Thanks a lot, jerk !
Review: I'd like to thank the reader from Los Angeles who completely spoiled this book for me and anyone else who hasn't read it. I was checking to see if this book was good or not, and right away there's some butthead giving away the book's major surprise. Here's a tip, "reader", try giving a spoiler warning before you do something like that again. To do this you can type SPOILERS in capital letters, just like that. It's the courteous thing to do. Also, you probably don't know this, but it's not very nice to tell your friends the ending of a movie that you saw before they did. Kinda spoils the experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Ghoulish & Ambient But Unsatisfying On The Whole
Review: In order to get some R&R and finish his thesis onD.H. Lawrence, Miles Teagarden, an English professor from New York,goes back to the tiny town in rural Wisconsin where he spent hisboyhood summers. The very night he arrives, teenaged girls begin to gomissing, only to be found raped, mutilated and murdered. The localsimmediately begin to harrass and bully Miles, suspecting him ofinvolvement.At this point, I was wondering "gee, why is thistown so mean?" And I couldn't figure out why Miles wasn'twondering the same thing. Instead, he spends his time shoplifting andpretending to write his book while obsessing over his cousin. During aromantic interlude when they were 14, he and his cousin Alison hadmade a promise to meet again in the small town after exactly twentyyears, when they were all grown up. Now, here it is, just a few daysaway from that date. A trip to visit his spooky witchy spinster auntreveals the reason behind the townfolks' suspicions. It seems thatMiles has forgotten that his cousin Alison died during that veryromantic interlude, having been raped, beaten and drowned. ThoughMiles was never charged for the death, he was never welcome in thetown again. Miles feels certain that Alison's murder is somehowconnected to the recent rash of murders. He wonders if it's the samekiller. But he also suspects his niece's creepy boyfriend, who has apenchant for sexual sadism, a cracked sense of intellectual vigor anda deep admiration for Hitler. Even though his neighbors arevandalizing his car and threatening his person he decides to stay intown until the anniversary of his date with Alison. He figures she'llreappear and be able to explain it all. Essentially, the things thattake place in the novel have little to do with the plot. This book iscomprised of one red herring after another. That in itself might havemade for a compelling mystery had any of the plentiful loose ends beentied up in the end. The only character I liked, the 14yr old Alison,isn't long for the world or the story. While the main character Mileswas so unsympathetic I kept hoping those neighbors would finally catchhim and poke him with their pitchforks. Were Straub not such anexpressive writer with such delicious and atmospheric prose, Iwould've given this book two stars. Though I didn't like the book as awhole, there were parts I really enjoyed. (I was surprised to seeStraub link D.H. Lawrence to misogyny and sexual violence--I alwaysthought I was alone in my horror of Lawrence's writings.)..
Rating:
Summary: MILES TO GO
Review: Miles Teagarden, the narrator and focal character, in Straub's early "If You Could See Me Now" is one mixed up guy. At times, you have to wonder if he's got all his cookies; but in some ways, that's what makes this book an eerie, if not classic, thriller. Straub is a wonderful writer, and even though at times, he gets too wordy, he sets a very suspenseful mood, and keeps an impending sense of doom permeating the novel.
When Miles returns to the scene of a horrifying "accident" after twenty years, we wonder when and if his beloved Allison will keep the vow she made those many years ago. If you've read a lot of this type of book, you pretty much know what the big revelation will be halfway through the book. Once you find that out, the story loses a little of its punch and the rest of the time, Miles is involved in finding out whodunit, although it's pretty obvious who did! At any rate, the novel moves along rather nicely, but the ending seems somewhat rushed, and the murderer's identity is something that is obscure and not fully fleshed out. Overall, though, if you are a Straub fan, this book fits nicely in your library, although "Ghost Story" and "Floating Dragon" are his best works.
RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: MILES TO GO
Review: Miles Teagarden, the narrator and focal character, in Straub's early "If You Could See Me Now" is one mixed up guy. At times, you have to wonder if he's got all his cookies; but in some ways, that's what makes this book an eerie, if not classic, thriller. Straub is a wonderful writer, and even though at times, he gets too wordy, he sets a very suspenseful mood, and keeps an impending sense of doom permeating the novel.
When Miles returns to the scene of a horrifying "accident" after twenty years, we wonder when and if his beloved Allison will keep the vow she made those many years ago. If you've read a lot of this type of book, you pretty much know what the big revelation will be halfway through the book. Once you find that out, the story loses a little of its punch and the rest of the time, Miles is involved in finding out whodunit, although it's pretty obvious who did! At any rate, the novel moves along rather nicely, but the ending seems somewhat rushed, and the murderer's identity is something that is obscure and not fully fleshed out. Overall, though, if you are a Straub fan, this book fits nicely in your library, although "Ghost Story" and "Floating Dragon" are his best works.
RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT ATMOSPHERE
Review: The best thing about "If You Could See Me Now" is the eerie, dream-like atmosphere that Straub builds from the very beginning. It contains so many weird, quirky goings-on before any "supernatural" elements are introduced, I kept thinking to myself as I was reading, "No way that just happened!" The plot surprises are effective, too. Straub baits you along for practically half the book before revealing even ONE of the surprise mysteries. The ending is a good twist, too. I liked Ghost Story, but this book made me a bona fide Peter Straub fan.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT ATMOSPHERE
Review: The best thing about "If You Could See Me Now" is the eerie, dream-like atmosphere that Straub builds from the very beginning. It contains so many weird, quirky goings-on before any "supernatural" elements are introduced, I kept thinking to myself as I was reading, "No way that just happened!" The plot surprises are effective, too. Straub baits you along for practically half the book before revealing even ONE of the surprise mysteries. The ending is a good twist, too. I liked Ghost Story, but this book made me a bona fide Peter Straub fan.
Rating:
Summary: Straub at his most concise
Review: The main problem that I have with this book is that the main character is such an idiot that he gets himself into much more trouble than he needs to. Then again, that's half the fun of the book: it's fascinating to watch Miles self-destruct and/or cluelessly do exactly what will get him into the most trouble with the locals, in the way that watching a car wreck is fascinating. (Not that I would hope anyone would get into a car wreck.) He reminds me in some ways of the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters. In fact, the supernatural aspects of the book seem almost superfluous: with a little more work this could be a straightfoward and compelling character study in self-destruction. However, such as it is, this is a very nice, very concise little ghost story, and well worth reading
Rating: 
Summary: "If You Forget, God Help You..."
Review: Thirteen year old Miles Teagarden and his one year older racy cousin, Alison Greening, went skinny-dipping in the quarry in Arden, Wisconsin, and made a pact to reunite twenty years in the future. Only Miles left the quarry alive. He doesn't remember what happened, but Alison drowned and everyone blamed him for it - though, hypocritical prudes that the townsfolk were, they felt the girl had it coming. Now, twenty years later, Miles has returned to honor the pact. With his return comes a shocking wave of serial murders and abductions - all of young girls of Alison's age and appearance. Suspicion falls upon him, and Miles has a knack for making it all worse. He's ruffling a lot of feathers, figuring out what really happened to Alison all those years ago. And before long, he's got much bigger worries than being the prime suspect in the most horrific crimes Arden has ever seen - because it seems someone is trying to kill him... This is a flawed novel, but it's a great flawed novel. Written between his debut book, Julia, and his most popular work, Ghost Story, Straub's If You Could See Me Now is a bridge between his supernatural horror fiction and his later Blue Rose murder mystery trilogy. The suspense in this book is superior, never letting up and continually adding new surprises in plot development. The book is thematically rich, and could easily become the subject of any number of contemporary literature research papers. It is mostly a murder mystery, and a well-written one at that. The supernatural element in the story is ill-explained and seems somewhat inconsistent, yet it works. Alison's motivations are not understandable, though in large part Straub seems to have intended her character to be enigmatic - her name, and her method of manifestation, suggest a change in her akin to becoming some sort of perverse nature elemental. If you like suspense - supernatural, or more mundane crime melodrama - this is the book for you.
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