Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Ward D

Freida does it again! Another 5 star read for me. I just couldn't put this book down and had to continue reading to find out what happened next. I was unable to guess any of the plot twists in this one which really made this book that little bit more shocking for me!
This book centres around Amy, a medical student, who is doing a night shift on the psychiatric ward (Ward D). Except, Amy knows one of the patients that are on this ward... we meet an array of characters along the way, some of which just suddenly disappear without a trace, but why?
Amy is working with her ex-boyfriend, Cameron, which she is not at all happy about, especially after the way that he dumped her. We also meet Damon, who is believed to be in Seclusion One for being an extremely dangerous person, except not is all as it seems. We also meet Jade, which is the person that Amy knows, as this was her kindergarten best friend! Jade ends up going down a completely different path to Amy, hence why she ends up on the psychiatric ward...
We also meet Will, who is a reporter for a local newspaper and is pretending to be dealing with schizophrenia just so he can see what really goes on in the ward after hearing different people's reports of the things that go on there. Except, Jade makes Amy believe that Will is her boyfriend, is a compulsive liar and can't be trusted. But we soon find out the truth and Will is actually a very honest person and not the compulsive liar that he was made out to be.
We also get flashbacks to eight years prior to this day on the ward, where Amy reminisces about times when Jade has tried to make her do things she doesn't wish to do, to the point Amy has gone to the police about a crime that Jade has wanted to commit. Which plays a part in the reason why Jade is in the psychiatric ward.
This book is really the roller-coaster of emotions and I just couldn't put it down!!

Content Warnings

acarther23's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings

brittlke's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? No

Hands down the worst book I have ever read in my life. I love to hate a character but this protagonist is insufferable. She is a medical student that should immediately be thrown out of med school. I’m so disappointed that, Frieda the author, is a doctor because the way that not only the patients but how mental health in general is treated in this book is abhorrent. Besides all of that it is just not a good read. Incredibly predictable thriller in a deeply boring way.

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