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A review by acarther23
Ward D by Freida McFadden
dark
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Let me open this by saying I am not the sort of person who feels that every protagonist of every type of book needs to be a certifiably Good and Likeable person. In fact, in the thriller genre in particular, I rather admire an author that writes a not-so-nice character that you end up rooting for anyway sheerly due to their dedication to survive.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Mental illness