ward D

By Freida McFadden

Too often the past decides to show its true face to the present.

The Ugly Truth:

Let me just start by saying GIRL READ THE DAMN FILE - holy heck. Amy Brenner you are NOT curious enough to be training as a medical student.

Anyways, now that I got that off my chest, Ward D is another classic Freida McFadden novel that has all the right traits to be a fast and favorite mystery novel. From the setting in a literal psych ward for the entire night to the introduction of an old, less-than- sane friend, to the idea of a mass murderer on the loose - this book kept me guessing from page one.

Amy Brenner was the perfect lead for a mystery novel because, and you might be shocked to agree with me on this, she was truly an unreliable narrator. This was not something we as the readers even had to guess. Her own visits to the past she shared with a patient in the psych ward quickly led her to doubt everything she knew about herself and what had happened prior to high school graduation. I loved that McFadden would allude to only so much within each chapter that you could gain an understanding for a friendship lost, but never could guess totally as to why.

While Amy was definitely the star of the show, I felt that the psych ward characters we were introduced to were built-out enough to drop just the right hints of eerie and other-wordly without stealing from the plot. I also enjoyed that they continued to drive Amy in a circle, with riddles that never quite made sense to her or the reader.

In a way, this was perfectly set-up to be a copycat read of Shutter Island, so I am so thrilled it went the direction it did. I will say, after all the tension, I was only semi-upset with the final few scenes - the final chapter though kept the story rolling right to the end.