For Those Who Like A Locked Door Mystery
ABOUT THE BOOK
Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward.
Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out.
And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.
Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D.
And now she might never escape.
| Listening Time | 7 hours and 20 minutes |
|---|---|
| Author | Freida McFadden |
| Narrator | Leslie Howard |
| Audible.com Release Date | May 09, 2023 |
Where do I begin with this one? While I had no trouble staying engaged and finishing the audiobook, it was extremely unbelievable from start to finish.
If you scale it all down, the plot is simple. We have Amy, a third-year medical student (I think that’s right) who is assigned Ward D, a psychiatric area, for the night. The story zeros in on Amy’s fear of things that go bump in the night, And the patients with psychiatric illnesses became the monsters hiding under the bed and, in Amy’s case, her closet.
Then we throw in some unlikely happenings. Well, extremely unlikely happenings such as a hospital with no emergency backup plans regarding Ward D, and the fact that the hospital lacks consistent cell phone coverage. Toss in a few more unlikely things, and sprinkle red herrings generously throughout, and you’ve got a story that kept me listening. I needed to know if I’d correctly guessed the ending.
The timeline goes back eight years to Amy’s relationship with her best friend, and then to the present in Ward D.
My Concerns
Though I’m not one who jumps to take a stand on too much, this book did feel pretty disrespectful of psychiatric illnesses as well as the institutions that care for such patients. That being said, let’s move on.
- I’m more than willing to suspend some disbelief when enjoying a work of fiction, but this required throwing all logical thinking out the window. A whole wing can lose communication with the world and the main door lock doesn’t work? Hmmm, somebody in corporate needs to be notified ASAP.
- The middle began to feel repetitive.
- The whole book read and felt more YA, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except I would hope a third-year medical student might not act like an early teenager. Amy was naive and most of her responses were not that of an educated adult.
- Amy’s mistake of thinking jelly on the floor near a closed door was blood seeping out from under the door, again makes me question her ability to ever become a doctor.
- It isn’t a mystery that takes too much to figure out.
- Amy is constantly mentioning how afraid she is to be around such violent, scary people.
Final Thoughts
This will be a book that you either love or tolerate, but read/listen to because you want to make sure that you’ve guessed the ending correctly.
Should you give it a try? According to most reviews, the answer is a resounding yes! As you know, what bothers some, others are able to easily overlook.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Freida McFadden’s website is a wonderful place to learn more about her.
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