Stay Where I Can See You

by Katrina Onstad

In a family, is anything forgivable? 
A penetrating new novel from the bestselling, Scotiabank Giller Prize-longlisted author of Everybody Has Everything

The Kaplan family has just won 10 million dollars in the lottery. But haven’t they always been lucky? Gwen thought so. She’s carefully curated a perfect suburban existence with a loving husband and two children. For over a decade, she’s been a stay-at-home mom, devoted to giving her kids the quiet, protected adolescence she didn’t have. But the surprise windfall suddenly upends the family, allowing them all to dream a little bigger and catapulting them back to the city that Gwen fled years ago.

As the Kaplans navigate the notoriety that the lottery brings and try to adjust to their new lives in the upper class—Seth launches a dubious start-up, Maddie falls headfirst in love at her elite prep school—a tightly held secret is unlocked. Along with the truth come long-buried memories from Gwen’s troubled youth, forcing her to confront her painful past and threatening to unravel the incredibly tight bond between her and Maddie. Her meticulously constructed identity as the good wife and mother begins to crack. And when their changed circumstances place her family under threat, Gwen must wake up from her domestic slumber.

For readers of Meg Wolitzer, Liane Moriarty and Zoe Whittall, Katrina Onstad’s new novel explores whether our most intimate relationships can survive our most unforgivable actions. Stay Where I Can See You is a penetrating story about the pendulum swing of fortune, the ferocity of mother–daughter devotion and the stories we tell—and withhold—because of love.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Contemporary, Canada, Family, Book Club, Literary Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2020

About the author

Katrina Onstad is an award-winning culture writer and novelist whose work has appeared in publications around the world including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Elle. The Weekend Effect, a manifesto for time off, is her first non-fiction book.

Katrina's novels include How Happy to Be and the national bestseller Everybody Has Everything, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. A former film critic at the National Post, TV executive at CBC and co-host of the Rogers movie show Reel to Real, she lives in Toronto with her family.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected it to be alot more engaging than it was. It's like most movies these days, the trailer (book jacket) shows all the good parts. I kept waiting for things to happen but nothing really did. Very disjointed, an ending that really didnt seem connected to much else. I was reading an uncorrected proof

[Noella Allisen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent story...nothing amazing or earth shattering. I kept waiting for something, anything, to happen that would raise it up a notch. I wanted more. There were many threads that I would have liked to see followed but were left hanging. Not good enough to recommend.

[Abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know I’m a sucker for a book set in Toronto...

[Lisa Gabriele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katrina Onstad is one of my all-time favourite writers, and this book is her at the top of her game. A seemingly normal suburban family experiences a dream-come-true windfall, which sends them back to the city, to a big house, a new, more comfortable, life. But it also exposes cracks in the family, especially between mother and daughter, and the past comes crawling back in the form of a very bad man, who mom had thought she'd left in her past—a tick-tock menace that underpins the plot. Throw in a precarious start-up, class division, mother-daughter anxieties, secrets and lies, and you have the kind of book that I SO wanted to read right now.
Get your hands on it as soon as you can. I lovedloved it!

[Jenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is full of wasted potential.

* any suspense that we might’ve had is thrown away when we’re given too much information too early
* all big impactful moments fell flat
* Gwen and Maddie are psychotic and annoying and weirdly judgey
* All relationships the two women have seem so superficial and big moments between them and their “loved ones” were again flat and meaningless
* there was much more telling than showing. Gwen is said to be a ferocious protective mother, but never shows it. And even big moments between characters, we’re just told about them instead of shown the scene.
* the final confrontation was so wishy-washy. It was barely a confrontation and all. And the aftermath was so blasé.

[Anh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book until the end and then it just felt like a a bit of a letdown. It felt like there were all these stories being built up and then at the end, it just felt like “that’s it?”

[Claudette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Family wins millions in the lottery. Hundreds of pages go by. An unsurprising secret is revealed. There is one thing that happens but it’s glossed over in a paragraph or two.

Actually this should have been a boring book but the writing redeemed it and kept me reading to the end. Honestly though this isn’t even much of character study nor is it a story of the aftermath of a lottery win. It’s not even much of what I think it’s supposed to be, which is the relationship story between mother and daughter. There just isn’t much THERE there.

[Liliana Campione · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was not captivating. Seems like it will be a mysterious thriller, but is very slow and predictable. Would not recommend. Sorry to the author for this bad review but like wow this was not a good book lol.

[Janna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook… enjoyed

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not dislike this book; on the other hand I cannot recommend it. Nothing about it really provoked or challenged; appeals to sympathy are acknowledged. Conflict and plot resolution so facile it was hard to accept as genuine.

[Brandon Siydock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The synopsis makes the book sound much better than it is. I didn't think it had much substance. I was expecting dramatic twists that never happened. I rated 3 stars, which is generous.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, lit fic about family and mother-daughter relationships. The cover made me think it was a thriller, which was a bit of a letdown when I read the blurb, but I went into it eyes wide open.

Started off slow, and with not much happening. Writing is good, but the kinda meandering style of narration isn't really my thing. But I do appreciate all the Toronto references, that was cool. And things do pick up maybe halfway through, and start to get interesting, but then so many of the plotlines seem to ramp up to a tipping point, but then end up fizzling out without really going anywhere.

I like that Joshua, the daughter's Asian love interest, was Filipino. (His surname is Andrada, which I honestly found distracting coz I know of several Andrades but no Andradas, and I kept thinking it was a typo. :p ) It was nice to read his story, the sacrifices his mom made to bring him to Canada, and the ways in which he and his mom's lives are so different from Maddie's. I also like how he calls Maddie out for her white saviour tendencies, and how he calls her out for leaving cash at an older Filipina's home rather than just stay and chat with her like she invited them to. (The flip side is that the older Filipina needed $100 to send a balikbayan box home to her family, coz her boss owed her like $400 in backpay, and Maddie just had $100 in her pocket, so it was a nice gesture on Maddie's part, and actually useful.)

Kinda meh about how the whole Daniel subplot turned out. There was a lot of ratcheting up of tension, and then the climactic scene gets really tense...but then just randomly peters out? (After stalking Gwen and Maddie for a chunk of the book, Gwen finally confronts Daniel at his apartment. He pushes her against a glass door, then takes her gun and threatens her with it. Then, as she's just lying there and it's legit scary...Daniel just steps onto the balcony railing and lets himself fall off. Sooo...the thread is now completely neutralized? And for no reason whatsoever? Since when was Daniel suicidal?)

There's another major stressor from Gwen's past that again kinda just peters away to nothing. So Gwen helped Daniel with a violent robbery when they were 20 or so, and Gwen has since been haunted by the fact that she ran away instead of helping the store manager whom Daniel beat up, possibly to the point of death. 16 years later, when Daniel returns, Gwen finally comes clean to her daughter and promises to turn herself in to the police. And first of all, why? 16 years later, you think that case will even still be open? What on earth will it accomplish?

But okay, so she confesses. And then the police say there's no record at all of a robbery, nor murder, of that donut shop on that date. In fact, they can't even find a trace of a manager named Steve ever having worked there. And Gwen has some nice reflecting on class and privilege, like how maybe Steve was just so used to that kind of thing, or maybe Steve was hiding from the system for other reasons like poverty or immigration status or whatever. But really, what was the point of all of that?

The other reason it was a stressor is that Gwen worried her husband Seth would hate her for having left poor Steve there all bloody and possibly dying. But then when she finally confesses to Seth, he just kinda says, "yeah I knew all the time you had a crappy life, and I don't hold this against you at all." And yeah, that's sweet, but like, all that build up for a half page scene?

Finally, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the whole subplot with Joshua's mom. So she needs a new kidney because she gave up one of her kidneys to pay for Joshua's flight to Canada, and her remaining kidney is not functioning well. But she's wayyyy down the provincial list for a kidney transplant, and her kids aren't matches so she can't get it from them either.

So then Maddie decides she wants to donate her own kidney specifically for Joshua's mom. She's a match, but the Toronto hospital ethics board wouldn't agree, even though she's just turned 18 and so is of age. So she decides to fly herself and Joshua's mom to the Philippines and get the procedure done there. A bit white saviour-y, like Joshua says, but okay, happy for Mrs Andrada that she gets her kidney.

But THEN, Maddie flies off without telling her family, whom she's still LIVING with. She literally just leaves a note saying "I'm going off somewhere, not with my boyfriend. I'll likely be back in a week but if not, don't worry, I'm safe and doing something good." And like, Daniel is dead by then, but Gwen had just gone through all the stress of Daniel coming back into their lives and wanting to take Maddie away, so Maddie's sudden disappearance is SUPER selfish and inconsiderate. PLUS she's gonna do a major surgical procedure without even telling her parents? Yeah, she's 18 but she literally just turned 18 and still lives in their home. How absolutely terrifying that must be to her family??? And like Mrs Andrada makes a comment about how permissive white parents are, and like yeah, because I can't imagine a Filipino child ever doing something like that.

Maddie also notes that Mrs Andrada likely doesn't believe she actually has her parents' permission to donate a kidney, but doesn't have much choice but to pretend she does if she wants to get that kidney for herself. And I actually really appreciate that bit of selfishness in Mrs Andrada's character, so that she isn't just this perfect martyr immigrant mother, but also a human being willing to overlook some ethics to survive.

So I was kinda bleah about how the whole thing was playing out, coz ugh I hated Maddie's superiority of "OMG I'm doing such a selfless thing and using my wealth for good" when she was actually being so totally selfish in how she was doing it.

But then Gwen tracks her down and then flies to the Philippines herself to donate her own kidney instead. And honestly, that was kinda a really sweet gesture on her part. So points to Gwen. She does feel all good about herself and her own generosity later on, of course, but whatevs. Mrs Andrada gets to live without dialysis, so Gwen and Maddie can feel as morally superior as they want. And to be fair to them both, donating a kidney IS a big deal, so okay, they're entitled.

[Franny V.]

This book was fine. You basically get the "big secret" in the beginning and then nothing really happens when it's revealed to all the characters later. It's sad and well written but of course the mention of white saviourism by one of the characters doesn't absolve the use of immigration injustice and intergenerational trauma as plot points without any nuance. Kind of sad the author is getting so much attention when there are more interesting Canadian authors.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid, fast read, and bonus points for being set in Canada. I loved that it only was told from the viewpoint of the mother and daughter, and how tiny themes snaked through it from start to finish.

[tolovetoread · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am definitely a sucker for a book set in Canada and more so, if the book is set in and around Toronto. I love reading a book where I am familiar with the streets, landmarks and places. Anyone else feel this way when their hometown is the setting of a book? 🇨🇦.
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Stay Where I Can See You has an interesting premise - a family wins millions in the lottery - and with this new money there is a promise of a new start. The story quickly shows us that this family - the Kaplan’s - are not only touched by this unbelievable luck but also hold together a web of secrets that could destroy everything they have worked to build. As the Kaplan’s build a new life - they are introduced to a world of wealth and privilege but the notoriety from the lottery win threatens to conjure up the secrets that they wish would remain buried. 📖.
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With the backdrop of the family drama and secrets, this book speeds along pretty easily. The characters - especially Gwen - are so interesting. This is a relatively short book with some good interweaved storylines - but the ending comes together too easily and left me thinking that it it was all just tied up too quickly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
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@tolovetoread #tolovetoread #read #reader #reading #readinglife #readersofinsta #readersofig #readthisbook #book #books #bookstagram #bookworm #bookish #bookreviewer #bibliophile #bookaddict #booksofig #booksof2020 #bookrecommendations #canadareads #bookishcanadians #amreading #bookthoughts #booklife #readanywhere #katrinaonstad #staywhereicanseeyou #harpercollinscanada

[Kaylie’s Bookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stay Where I Can See You by Katrina Onstad was published in March of this year and is Onstad’s fourth novel. Onstad’s story follows the Kaplan family after they have won nearly ten million dollars from a lottery ticket that mom, Gwen, purchased on a whim. After accepting their winnings, the Kaplan’s are unaware just how different their lives will become. The story is told from Gwen’s and her daughter Maddie’s perspectives as Onstad weaves in and out of Gwen’s past (that she has kept secret from family) and the present time with the Kaplan family moving to Toronto, Ontario. It is here that things start changing for the family. Stay Where I Can See You works to parallel Gwen and Maddie’s own coming-of-age stories but instead makes the novel feel like it could be two completely different stories with a plot that tries to connect the two and an ending that makes you go ‘huh?’.

Gwen has kept most of her life a secret from her family and only after they win the jackpot do things in her life start making their way to the surface. This includes themes such as domestic abuse, homelessness, and single parenting. While these are important topics and themes that need to be discussed, they leave the reader not feeling the empathy towards Gwen that Onstad intended. The reader learns quickly that Gwen is an overbearing, protective, and neurotic mother who will do anything to protect her daughter from the bad things in the world. A lot of what Gwen does seems extreme such as constantly following her daughter around well into her teenage years. This makes Gwen difficult to relate to for some readers. There were also a couple of characters in the story that were recurring yet the reader may find themselves forgetting who that character is having to then back track to remember what that character’s place is in the story. The reader may find themselves asking more questions than finding answers as the story goes on. 

I appreciate the hard work that goes into creating a novel such as Stay Where I Can See You. I was intrigued to want to finish the book to see what was going to happen and it is a fairly easy read.

https://www.cloudlakeliterary.ca/blog...

Originally posted on Cloud Lake Literary, link above.

[Janna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I shouldn't take this novel personally, but unfortunately Katrina Onstad has contributed to the pervasive stereotype that Canadians are boring, which irks me terribly. After Onstad deflated nearly all suspense by introducing Gwen's backstory near the beginning, I was hoping for some weird and wonderful character idiosyncrasies along the lines of Jonathan Franzen's Crossroads. Sadly, there were no surprises in either plot or character development. I suspect that Onstad is too concerned with ensuring readers LIKE her characters instead of making them compelling.

Gwen was rendered mildly interesting mostly by what had happened TO her (she was completely predictable, other than stalking her daughter). Maddie was unbelievably and insufferably well-meaning for a teenager, so I sped through most of her parts. Seth was a missed opportunity to add some fascinating plot twists, but there was minimal explanation and exploration of his risky investment behaviour. Daniel seems untouched by decades of bad behaviour and how he died wasn't believable to me. I can't remember the name of the other kid, which isn't high praise.

The Toronto setting and Onstad's competent writing held me to the end, but I was bitterly disappointed that there were no real surprises in a story that promises to "navigate the notoriety that the lottery brings".

[Doug Dosdall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waffling between three and four stars on this one but I'm feeling generous. Interesting tour through different socio-economic classes; no judgement just observation. Audiobook reader lost some credibility when she pronounced toque "toke". Couldn't they have gotten a Canadian reader for a novel in which the Canadian setting was so much part of the novel?

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming.

[Jacie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It starts off like the book version of a Lifetime movie and then turns into a political rant.
Middle class White liberals become richer. Oh, but they're still not rich, because Clara had a 10 million dollar home, so we're good White people.
Bashes people who don't sign their organ donor cards, and I don't like politics shoved in my face when reading fictions, whether I agree with them or not. And the organ donor thing is just shoved in half-mindedly. It's not like the whole book was about someone with an illness who needed an organ donation. That would've made sense and may have been a good book. No, it was just shoved in suddenly near the end with the author's political views attached to it. Seriously, Katrina's own political views on it took up more words than the actual actual story-part relating to the need for a new kidney.
Whole thing is is Gwen and Maddie being "we're holier-than-thou White people."
Gwen is just: "my dad was kind of mean so poor me I dated an abuser but now I'm middle class" suddenly like nothing happened.
No, that's not how it works.
Most people are not that rich. I have never, ever met anyone in my life who lives in a 10 million dollar mansion.
And the school is a bunch of rich White people all like, "we care about refugees," "we care about immigrants," "bla bla bla." It's basically rich people portraying themselves as heroes for turning other people's problems into charity cases.
Maddie is worse than Gwen. She's the oh so altruistic heroic teenager. Also, for Joshua's mother, what kind of middle aged adult allows a teenager they barely know to risk their life to be a live organ donor for them? And she did it to basically force a guy to be her boyfriend, but then we never hear about him again!! I think most teenagers would be pissed if they did something like that for a love interest to be up and ditched by said love interest. A 40-year-old would be pissed if that happened to them!!
And yes, Gwen took her spot, but still.
Also, Daniel's death doesn't make any sense. Did he kill himself, or what? And it's barely mentioned. It's like a line. "Daniel jumps off a balcony." Like, wtf?!?!?!? Why??? Some context, please.

Obviously, I deserved what I got. I noticed on the cover that one of the author's books had been nominated for a Scotiabank Giller Prize, and they only give those awards out to books with political messages, and I can't stand politics, so I was stupid to read this book.

The plot, events, and characters of this book are a 1star, if that, but I upped her to a 2-star because it was otherwise well written. Still, I would not recommend.

[Anne Caverhill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about a young family who wins 10 million dollars but the raw poof of the story is how a young,homeless, teen becomes a mum, gets married and tries valiantly to adapt to a world of stainless steel homes in Rosedale, elite school districts and boat rides to a summer cottage in Muskoka.
It sounds light but it is anything but.
The characters are drawn with miserable finesse and make you care desperately about them as they try to ‘fit’ into their new world of riches as the mom tries to leave behind her goth Street life of survival and the daughter clamours to understand first love in a world of illegal immigrants. It’s set in Toronto replete with lots of Canadian markers but the story is universal—the quest to find out who we are and where we came from. And, then what.

[Kbeckermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of the novel, winning a lottery, put me off but since I like Onstad writing and themes I decided to give it a try. Fortunately, the lottery is less significant, it is simply an event to tell the story. Of the two parallel stories I engaged more with Maddy. I was less sympathetic to Gwen, at times finding her annoying. I enjoyed the complex themes and the small observations of day-to-day life. Interweaving them made the whole narrative much more real and contributed to me connecting with the characters and the struggle to make sense of our individual circumstances and the world around us.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by Stay Where I Can See You. It was a satisfying story that didn't seem to take far fetched turns.

Maddie also seemed a little too wise for a 17 year old, but I guess there are some of those out there.

My pet peeve was when Onstad seemed to be trying to make "the music" anonymous, while clearly referencing actual musicians and even more so when she tried to do this with "the city." Some Toronto details are clearly written in, so it is bizarre to not just name the CN tower.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always enjoy reading a Canadian author and a book that is set in a familiar city. The premise of winning the lottery was intriguing but the novel goes deeper than that - essentially a coming of age story of the daughter and mother and the repercussions of family secrets. I actually found the key character (Gwen) rather unlikeable, to be honest which made it tough to keep reading at times. The entire story felt disjointed to me and I can't put my finger on exactly why I didn't connect better with this story and characters. I guess I just had hoped for more.

[Caroline Vanslyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book started out with promise, a family wins the lottery. Dad starts a new company, family moves, mom tries to find her place in the new house, community and navigate her relationship to her teen daughter while her past secret life starts to unravel. Somewhere about the middle it starts to become to familiar and I found the ending to be too unrelated to the rest of the story and not fully believable. there were contrasts between wealthy and poor, the immigrant experience which were more plot devices versus rich explorations of these themes

[JMacDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting plot and characters - a family wins the lottery and inevitably their life changes. But this book has more to it - a mother with a buried past, a loving husband, a daughter ready to escape who she obsesses over and a young son. The push and pull of this regular family was quite engaging and at certain point the reading couldn't be stopped.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book and kept me wanting to go back for more! In the over saturated market of thrillers, it's gotta be hard to come up with new twists and original plots. It's so refreshing when you do find something with newness. Katrina Onstad was able to do this. Will definitely read more from her :)

[Jane]

Lottery winners decide to move from suburbia back to the city, thinking it will add to their happiness.
author explores mother daughter relationships, hidden stories and issues that need to be explored and dealt with
Can money solve problems?
almost didn't finish..slow at times and felt like author was trying too hard to deal with very compicated issues

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, a novel where the criticism on Goodreads is for things I like in a book: it's suspenseful but not enough dramatic stuff happens, and the lead character was an unlikable woman. I don't know if she was all the way to unlikable, but I wouldn't be friends with her. She's imperfect. I found the plot intriguing and I read it quickly, wanting to know what happens next.

[Teya Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not a good book at all.

Main characters were insufferable. The mother had undiagnosed mental illness, daughter had a white saviour complex (even though it was addressed but also not addressed? It was just so part of the fabric of this book).

I hated it. No redeeming qualities. I just wanted it to be over.