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darlaslays's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I found myself getting super irritated at the numerous times the word, “crazy,” was used. The main character, Amy, is super unlikeable and dense. She’s supposed to be a third year medical student, but she doesn’t know a lot of basic information that you would already know as during undergrad, such as “sundowning.” She is clearly not very smart, so I don’t know how she made it into her graduate program. By the end of the book, it appears that
I almost didn’t finish this book due to how the topic of mental health was covered. I also couldn’t suspend my disbelief on the unrealistic aspects of the ward or healthcare in general. I did appreciate when they sort of acknowledged that mentally ill patients are still people too.
Amy is very immature and has a terrible take on mental disorders. It does get reconciled in the end, but that reconciliation does demonize people who have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. As someone with bipolar II, I felt irritated that the condition wasn’t accurately portrayed. I’ve had one horrible manic episode with psychosis and several hypomanic periods in my life, but it never led to violence on others. I wish it was clearly depicted that the mental disorders and the violent actions taken by the characters were separate issues.
The writing was clunky at times, and it read like a YA novel. Nothing wrong with that, but the characters certainly didn’t seem like they were mid-to-late twenty somethings. They felt more like teenagers. I definitely cringed at several lines sprinkled throughout the book. At other times, I loved the descriptions of the events unfolding.
All that being said, the twists were fun and interesting, albeit it left the story with plot holes. Focusing on them too much would have just taken my enjoyment away. I can see why people are a fan of McFadden’s writing overall. This is likely not her best work, though.
It’s a fun time, just don’t set your expectations high for realism and be prepared to roll your eyes at the main character’s inner thoughts and actions.
Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Violence, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Dementia, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Racism
The violence isn’t gratuitous, but people are restrained and beaten, brutally killed, or found dead.insideunder's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
nicolecoyle's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Violence, and Blood
Minor: Dementia and Fire/Fire injury
acarther23's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
However, the protagonist of Ward D -- Amy -- is neither of those characters. She's naive, easily manipulated, and refuses to learn from her own idiotic actions. The book is told in a back-and-forth manner between her current self (a third-year medical student) and herself eight years ago (in high school). Somehow, in those eight years, she has not managed to grow or change in any significant way. She still fails to see the most obvious of red flags and falls for every single trick in the book. It's maddening to read a story in which the narrator keeps internally monologuing about how stupid she's been then does something even stupider two pages later. She makes bad, unethical decisions and justifies them to herself using childish logic. By the end of the book, I was practically begging for her to give in and die already so literally any other character could take over the narration and tell us how it ends.
My real issue with this book, though, is the portrayal of mental illness. I'm far from the first reviewer to bring this up, but it truly is an irresponsible representation. Mentally ill people in this novel are either violent, devious, and evil, or utterly clueless pity-receptacles. The protagonist is both, and yet still treats the other characters in an incredibly prejudicial way. The premise is also difficult to believe; there's simply no way that a hospital would ever have any ward, psychiatric or not, be completely inaccessible and unescapable at the same time.
Honestly, it's a pity because I could have seen this novel being a good vehicle for telling a story about mental illness and mistreatment within the medical system. The threads were there, but they weren't strung together. Instead, the author chose to focus on the shock value of having mentally ill characters do horrible things while our hapless heroine cried internally over whether or not she herself was "crazy", which evidently in her opinion was the worst possible thing one could ever be.
In sum: I had a lot of problems with this book. And yet, I was entertained by it, even as I felt the strongest urge to strangle the main character. Most of the twists were predictable, but a few weren't, at least to me. Not a total waste of time; could have been far better. Two stars.
Graphic: Ableism and Mental illness
nuuamuikkunen's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Bipolar disorder doesn’t make you want to kill other people. Scizophrenia doesn’t make you want to kill people. These disorders are more harmful to the patient than the people around them. Cmon. Easy research. Totally inexcusable to write books like this in this day and age.
All in all, the way these patients are talked about gave me the ick.
Plus, the main character is just soooo unbearable. Hated her. I’m starting to see that it’s a pattern with Freida’s books. But the plot is usually so good, I keep on reading them.
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
azure_ecllpse's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
bookedandbusy's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Suicide, and Murder
sharlapeggy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
rsagarin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
greatestheights's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Graphic: Ableism, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis