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A review by kaitlynisliterate
The Coworker by Freida McFadden
3.0
I am unbelievably excited to have received an ARC for Freida McFadden’s newest book, considering I read essentially her entire back catalog this year. This book starts off really strong and I particularly enjoyed the use of Dawn’s emails as a narrative device and for exposition.
The key to reading a Freida McFadden book (and a lot of other psychological thrillers) is to suspend your disbelief and not dwell too much on the details or else the whole plot falls apart. For example, you just have to accept the way that the police investigation is conducted even if it’s completely unrealistic or nonsensical (eg: they never look into Natalie’s finances despite that being the primary motive).
However, there is a limit to that suspension of disbelief and it’s especially tested when main characters start behaving completely contrary to how they’ve been portrayed for 80% of the book. I have to say that I’m pretty let down by the ending. While the characterization had been relatively consistent for Part 1 of the book, it suddenly goes off the rails for the sake of a few last-minute plot twists. In particular, Dawn’s behavior in the last few chapters didn’t make sense to me, and way too many decisions are hand-waved away by playing the “love fixes all” card.
I also felt like the book spent way too much time on, what I can only assume is, a red herring subplot about Vixen’s products. Random people basically pop up to yell at Natalie and then are never mentioned again. It doesn’t add anything to the story since there it’s never even implied to be related to Dawn’s disappearance. Natalie certainly doesn’t dwell on it for more than half a second.
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
The key to reading a Freida McFadden book (and a lot of other psychological thrillers) is to suspend your disbelief and not dwell too much on the details or else the whole plot falls apart. For example, you just have to accept the way that the police investigation is conducted even if it’s completely unrealistic or nonsensical
However, there is a limit to that suspension of disbelief and it’s especially tested when main characters start behaving completely contrary to how they’ve been portrayed for 80% of the book. I have to say that I’m pretty let down by the ending. While the characterization had been relatively consistent for Part 1 of the book, it suddenly goes off the rails for the sake of a few last-minute plot twists.
I also felt like the book spent way too much time on, what I can only assume is, a red herring subplot about Vixen’s products. Random people basically pop up to yell at Natalie and then are never mentioned again. It doesn’t add anything to the story since there it’s never even implied to be related to Dawn’s disappearance. Natalie certainly doesn’t dwell on it for more than half a second.
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.