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A review by depsy34
Ward D by Freida McFadden
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
Holy crap on a cracker! I don’t usually bother to take the time to review books I rate this low but this one deserved it. It will also be the final Frieda book I read.
I had issues with previous Frieda books but they were normally minor. My major gripes have been the inability to realise it isn't necessary to pull off a ‘big twist’ at the end if it feels painfully and illogically forced in, among a few other little issues.
I actually loved at least one of Frieda's other books until the epilogue where the writing DESPERATELY tries to surprise you. It's never done well and all of the ‘twists’ are at the expense of the rest of the book.
This time I was already annoyed at the start of the book. We expect to suspend some credulity when reading a thriller. A character will make a dumb choice. Some unexpected thing (like lights going out) will happen.
With Ward D you are expected to take your credulity, shove it in a toilet, flush it, race it down to the sewage plant where you beat it up, put it in a bag, hand it to the mafia and have them go make it ‘sleep with the fishes.’
I’ll start with things which I considered ‘annoying but not entirely unreasonable for a thriller’:
1. The idea that on a psychiatric ward there is an intense and loud BUZZ every time someone enters or exits. – No. Do you have any idea about mental illness? Fun fact, a lot of psychiatric disorders include some kind of struggle with loud or unexpected noises. This is NOT a thing.
2. The entire time the main character acts like it is so hard to find her fellow doctor / anyone. Psych wards aren’t that large. OR if they are, they have HEAPS of staff on them. You think they just want it easy for people struggling with their mental health to hide?
3. Our MC is MEANT to be a doctor candidate. At LEAST they are meant to SMART. As usually, the writing tries to TELL us the MC is clever, while failing to follow through at all.
4. MULTIPLE TIMES the MC says ‘against my character’ or similar and does something idiotic. This is such lazy writing it HURTS.
5. We’re expected to believe that a psych ward, as part of a hospital, goes into basic shutdown / can’t be accessed if the power goes out?
Things I can’t overlook:
1. The elaborate plot for the sake of it. The criminals can already escape but stay in the ward to play with the MC?
2. Red Jelly vs Blood. Absolutely not. If you can be gaslit that easily you wouldn’t be a doctor. As many other reviews have pointed out – tomato sauce, hot sauce etc there were far better choices!
3. The “Twist at the end”. Oh! My! God! Honestly, even though the rest of the book was trash, I was about to breathe a sigh of relief and say ‘at least there isn’t an attempt to shoehorn something stupid in’ and THEN the FUCKING TWIST!
Fun fact – you can’t have an unreliable narrator who turns ‘reliable’ at the end. Either she NEVER acknowledges the little girl OR we see her throughout. For a hot second I enjoyed the idea that the MC had been drugged and that was why she saw the little girl, but NO we were meant to believe the MC who has been narrating to NO ONE was ignoring this hallucination the whole time. Basically – she was there but you didn’t see her but she was also telling me what to do! It’s not clever, it‘s lazy, gross and BAD.
Finally, I didn’t know before this book that Sheila is an actual practicing DOCTOR! With that in mind – this book is the most disgusting portrayal of mental health issues I’ve seen in a VERY long time! Not to mention the contradiction of the MC repeatedly talking about how you can’t ‘trust people who see things’ while very unsubtly telling us ‘people with mental illness get addicted to things’ and placing a peach iced tea in a brick and beating you over the head with it.
The portrayal of mental illnesses and the psychiatric ward is disgusting, from a doctor it makes me think she really needs some additional training and education about mental illness.
I’m done with Mcfadden's books but saddened that anyone would think this was good writing, clever writing or a good thriller. Much less acceptable in 2024 when talking about mental health.
I had issues with previous Frieda books but they were normally minor. My major gripes have been the inability to realise it isn't necessary to pull off a ‘big twist’ at the end if it feels painfully and illogically forced in, among a few other little issues.
I actually loved at least one of Frieda's other books until the epilogue where the writing DESPERATELY tries to surprise you. It's never done well and all of the ‘twists’ are at the expense of the rest of the book.
This time I was already annoyed at the start of the book. We expect to suspend some credulity when reading a thriller. A character will make a dumb choice. Some unexpected thing (like lights going out) will happen.
With Ward D you are expected to take your credulity, shove it in a toilet, flush it, race it down to the sewage plant where you beat it up, put it in a bag, hand it to the mafia and have them go make it ‘sleep with the fishes.’
I’ll start with things which I considered ‘annoying but not entirely unreasonable for a thriller’:
1. The idea that on a psychiatric ward there is an intense and loud BUZZ every time someone enters or exits. – No. Do you have any idea about mental illness? Fun fact, a lot of psychiatric disorders include some kind of struggle with loud or unexpected noises. This is NOT a thing.
2. The entire time the main character acts like it is so hard to find her fellow doctor / anyone. Psych wards aren’t that large. OR if they are, they have HEAPS of staff on them. You think they just want it easy for people struggling with their mental health to hide?
3. Our MC is MEANT to be a doctor candidate. At LEAST they are meant to SMART. As usually, the writing tries to TELL us the MC is clever, while failing to follow through at all.
4. MULTIPLE TIMES the MC says ‘against my character’ or similar and does something idiotic. This is such lazy writing it HURTS.
5. We’re expected to believe that a psych ward, as part of a hospital, goes into basic shutdown / can’t be accessed if the power goes out?
Things I can’t overlook:
1. The elaborate plot for the sake of it. The criminals can already escape but stay in the ward to play with the MC?
2. Red Jelly vs Blood. Absolutely not. If you can be gaslit that easily you wouldn’t be a doctor. As many other reviews have pointed out – tomato sauce, hot sauce etc there were far better choices!
3. The “Twist at the end”. Oh! My! God! Honestly, even though the rest of the book was trash, I was about to breathe a sigh of relief and say ‘at least there isn’t an attempt to shoehorn something stupid in’ and THEN the FUCKING TWIST!
Fun fact – you can’t have an unreliable narrator who turns ‘reliable’ at the end. Either she NEVER acknowledges the little girl OR we see her throughout. For a hot second I enjoyed the idea that the MC had been drugged and that was why she saw the little girl, but NO we were meant to believe the MC who has been narrating to NO ONE was ignoring this hallucination the whole time. Basically – she was there but you didn’t see her but she was also telling me what to do! It’s not clever, it‘s lazy, gross and BAD.
Finally, I didn’t know before this book that Sheila is an actual practicing DOCTOR! With that in mind – this book is the most disgusting portrayal of mental health issues I’ve seen in a VERY long time! Not to mention the contradiction of the MC repeatedly talking about how you can’t ‘trust people who see things’ while very unsubtly telling us ‘people with mental illness get addicted to things’ and placing a peach iced tea in a brick and beating you over the head with it.
The portrayal of mental illnesses and the psychiatric ward is disgusting, from a doctor it makes me think she really needs some additional training and education about mental illness.
I’m done with Mcfadden's books but saddened that anyone would think this was good writing, clever writing or a good thriller. Much less acceptable in 2024 when talking about mental health.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Toxic friendship