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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
Thank you @simonschusterca for a copy of Behind The Red Door by Megan Collins for review.
I won’t give too much of Behind The Red Door away because you need to read it to believe it. Content warnings for psychological abuse and severe anxiety and kidnapping.
Fern is considered an unreliable narrator because of her severe anxiety. I found the portrayal of it done well though I have heard others call it annoying. She spirals in her negative thinking a lot but I have to say that when I was reading it, I thought it felt true to what I have experienced as well. Maybe not as much as Fern but when you learn more about her father, you’ll see why she might feel that way
I won’t give too much of Behind The Red Door away because you need to read it to believe it. Content warnings for psychological abuse and severe anxiety and kidnapping.
Fern is considered an unreliable narrator because of her severe anxiety. I found the portrayal of it done well though I have heard others call it annoying. She spirals in her negative thinking a lot but I have to say that when I was reading it, I thought it felt true to what I have experienced as well. Maybe not as much as Fern but when you learn more about her father, you’ll see why she might feel that way
This middling, psychological thriller is well written but never really delivers anything beyond a run of the mill mystery that's so simple to figure out you're left wondering why its taking the protagonist so long. If by say page ten you think you've got it worked out, spoiler alert, you're right.
Collins has written some pretty believable characters and has clearly done her research into both psychiatry and the affects of trauma but the situations she thrusts her heroine into are so outlandishly horrible its just too hard to suspend disbelief.
The concept is interesting, a woman who disappeared as a child for several weeks only to be found drugged and incoherent on the side of the road is kidnapped again on the anniversary of her original disappearance. Our heroine starts to realize that she might have also been a victim of the same kidnapper and the kidnapper is someone she knows very well.
That's really all I can tell you because to reveal anything else would be telling you exactly who is responsible, it really is that easy to work out.
The mystery also just kind of peters out into a little puddle of blah with the emphasis more on the heroine's fears about impending mother hood and improving her marriage to her loving and understanding husband.
Honestly? I'm not sure this really was a thriller. I don't exactly know what it was. It just wasn't very good.
Collins has written some pretty believable characters and has clearly done her research into both psychiatry and the affects of trauma but the situations she thrusts her heroine into are so outlandishly horrible its just too hard to suspend disbelief.
The concept is interesting, a woman who disappeared as a child for several weeks only to be found drugged and incoherent on the side of the road is kidnapped again on the anniversary of her original disappearance. Our heroine starts to realize that she might have also been a victim of the same kidnapper and the kidnapper is someone she knows very well.
That's really all I can tell you because to reveal anything else would be telling you exactly who is responsible, it really is that easy to work out.
The mystery also just kind of peters out into a little puddle of blah with the emphasis more on the heroine's fears about impending mother hood and improving her marriage to her loving and understanding husband.
Honestly? I'm not sure this really was a thriller. I don't exactly know what it was. It just wasn't very good.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book. Another great thriller! Fern goes back to her childhood home to help her dad pack up to move. As shes there, Astrid, a child kidnapped twenty years earlier, goes missing again and Fern is determined to figure why she knows her. Once again my gut feeling was right all along but there were still some great twists and turns.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
Behind the Red Door starts with social worker Fern who is planning to return home to help her neglectful father pack up his home to move to Florida. Ted, her father, is a now retired university professor, obsessed with fear, who created various "Experiments" which were really more like pranks on Fern as a child to document her fear and response in the name of science. Not a great parent, to say the least. Fern has accepted his limitations (and those of her mom as well, who's off on a cruise somewhere, always having been emotionally detached from Fern), and has come to help because her father expressed that he needed her, which was basically like emotional catnip.
Fern's been dealing with some reactions to some new medication her psychiatrist has prescribed, and as she's making the journey back to her hometown, we get the sense that maybe she's not doing so well. She's experiencing hallucinations and nightmares which are hinting that there may be some repressed memories coming up for Fern that finally need dealing with.
Simultaneously, Fern's become aware of a woman called Astrid Sullivan who went missing from a neighbouring town 20 years ago because she's just gone missing again. After her initial abduction she was eventually returned, drugged to a street corner near her house, without any explanation. Now, 20 years later, after having published her own memoir of the harrowing experience of being locked in a basement for days, Astrid has disappeared again without a trace, this time from her home in Maine. Fern starts reading the memoir, and Astrid is convinced that there was someone who saw who her captor was back then, and that this person knows something but has never come forward. Could Fern's nightmares hold the key to who this witness might have been?
This book had great pacing— it didn't drag at any point, and it also didn't feel like the story was too rushed, either. I will say that at times, the beginning felt a little slapdash in some ways: as if the middle and end had been fleshed out first, leaving the beginning without quite as much attention as it may have benefitted from. Having said that, I thought it was a solid story overall. 3.5 stars.
Behind the Red Door starts with social worker Fern who is planning to return home to help her neglectful father pack up his home to move to Florida. Ted, her father, is a now retired university professor, obsessed with fear, who created various "Experiments" which were really more like pranks on Fern as a child to document her fear and response in the name of science. Not a great parent, to say the least. Fern has accepted his limitations (and those of her mom as well, who's off on a cruise somewhere, always having been emotionally detached from Fern), and has come to help because her father expressed that he needed her, which was basically like emotional catnip.
Fern's been dealing with some reactions to some new medication her psychiatrist has prescribed, and as she's making the journey back to her hometown, we get the sense that maybe she's not doing so well. She's experiencing hallucinations and nightmares which are hinting that there may be some repressed memories coming up for Fern that finally need dealing with.
Simultaneously, Fern's become aware of a woman called Astrid Sullivan who went missing from a neighbouring town 20 years ago because she's just gone missing again. After her initial abduction she was eventually returned, drugged to a street corner near her house, without any explanation. Now, 20 years later, after having published her own memoir of the harrowing experience of being locked in a basement for days, Astrid has disappeared again without a trace, this time from her home in Maine. Fern starts reading the memoir, and Astrid is convinced that there was someone who saw who her captor was back then, and that this person knows something but has never come forward. Could Fern's nightmares hold the key to who this witness might have been?
This book had great pacing— it didn't drag at any point, and it also didn't feel like the story was too rushed, either. I will say that at times, the beginning felt a little slapdash in some ways: as if the middle and end had been fleshed out first, leaving the beginning without quite as much attention as it may have benefitted from. Having said that, I thought it was a solid story overall. 3.5 stars.
Megan Collins’s debut novel, The Winter Sister, was filled with gorgeous prose and a story that was spellbinding, atmospheric, and deeply touching. Her sophomore novel, Behind The Red Door doesn’t disappoint. Collins’s writing is highly evocative as she details a distressingly abnormal family that somehow produces a daughter, Fern, who is strong and resilient, though flawed with an anxiety that at times is paralyzing. She suffers from traumatic amnesia related to kidnapping that occurred twenty years earlier and she may hold the key to saving a kidnapping victim.
Behind The Red Door is a gripping, twisted thriller filled with insights into fear of ourselves, others, and horror movie staples: deep dark forests, isolated cabins, nightmares, and the inability to know who you can trust. The New England countryside itself becomes a disturbing character. The red herrings were subtly laid and entirely believable.
Behind The Red Door is a gripping, twisted thriller filled with insights into fear of ourselves, others, and horror movie staples: deep dark forests, isolated cabins, nightmares, and the inability to know who you can trust. The New England countryside itself becomes a disturbing character. The red herrings were subtly laid and entirely believable.
Behind the Red Door is a psychological thriller focusing on Fern Douglas, a woman with serious anxiety issues. In fact, when she sees a woman on the news and is certain she has seen her in person, not even her very loving husband believes her. Her father has asked her to help him pack up the family home as he plans to retire to Florida. A deeply narcissistic and selfish man, he actually expects her to do all the work while he dithers in his office.
The woman she saw on the news is named Astrid. She was kidnapped as a child from the area where Fern grew up. After a time, she was returned and her kidnapper was never found. After writing her memoir she was kidnapped again, setting off speculation that her original kidnapper may have been involved. She is missing and Fern is certain she saw her kidnapper in her childhood and could possibly, if she remembers enough, help find her in the present.
Early in the story, we learn Fern’s father loved to “experiment” on his daughter by frightening her and then asking her questions about her fear. Her mother went along with the experiments, leaving her behind as they drove away, not coming home at night, and other ways to test her fears. In a way, this book explores a child’s need to love their parents, no matter how little they deserve it.
Behind the Red Door was disappointing in several ways. The most critical, though, is that there is not much mystery. I think I was just past 10% of the way through the book when I felt certain I knew who the kidnapper was. The rest of the book was a long confirmation that I must be right. Fern was an annoying protagonist because of her fears and anxieties. In terms of character development, there is the suggestion that she has moved beyond her fears, but we don’t get to see it happen, leaving the consequences open-ended. I would like to see her show she really moved past her anxieties, though the “cure” is dismissive of the real illness. The story has real potential in terms of creating a plot, but I think it went awry in creating characters who were too one dimensional.
Behind the Red Door will be released on August 4th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley
Behind the Red Door at Atria Books | Simon & Schuster
Megan Collins author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/08/02/9781982130398/
The woman she saw on the news is named Astrid. She was kidnapped as a child from the area where Fern grew up. After a time, she was returned and her kidnapper was never found. After writing her memoir she was kidnapped again, setting off speculation that her original kidnapper may have been involved. She is missing and Fern is certain she saw her kidnapper in her childhood and could possibly, if she remembers enough, help find her in the present.
Early in the story, we learn Fern’s father loved to “experiment” on his daughter by frightening her and then asking her questions about her fear. Her mother went along with the experiments, leaving her behind as they drove away, not coming home at night, and other ways to test her fears. In a way, this book explores a child’s need to love their parents, no matter how little they deserve it.
Behind the Red Door was disappointing in several ways. The most critical, though, is that there is not much mystery. I think I was just past 10% of the way through the book when I felt certain I knew who the kidnapper was. The rest of the book was a long confirmation that I must be right. Fern was an annoying protagonist because of her fears and anxieties. In terms of character development, there is the suggestion that she has moved beyond her fears, but we don’t get to see it happen, leaving the consequences open-ended. I would like to see her show she really moved past her anxieties, though the “cure” is dismissive of the real illness. The story has real potential in terms of creating a plot, but I think it went awry in creating characters who were too one dimensional.
Behind the Red Door will be released on August 4th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley
Behind the Red Door at Atria Books | Simon & Schuster
Megan Collins author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/08/02/9781982130398/
Behind The Red Door isn’t just a gripping, finely-tuned thriller, it’s a masterful meditation on fear. Dark forests, crumbling cabins, and mutating nightmares all populate this New England landscape where one woman may hold the key to saving a kidnapping victim. But in order to do so, she’ll have to confront a lifetime of terror, including the ultimate fear: not knowing who can be trusted or where the monsters live. I was hooked from the first page.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!
CW: kidnapping, psychological abuse, bullying, neglect, homophobia, religious homophobia, and infertility
This was such a quick read. I devoured it in a couple of days because it was so good. It's definitely a book that you want to read very quickly because there's so much going on.
Fern has generalized anxiety disorder and multiple phobias. She spirals quickly and catastrophizes everything. Luckily, her husband, Eric, is understanding and is good for her. They're trying for a baby -- one that she's not sure she's ready for -- and is going down to help her father move. Her relationship with her father is tense because he was a psychological researcher, one who liked to focus on fear and whose experiments get blocked because of how unethical they are. To substitute that, growing up he would do the Experiments with her, basically scaring her one way or another, documenting it, and then asking her questions to learn more about fear.
Linked to this is Astrid, someone that Fern doesn't know... or does she? Astrid was kidnapped as a child and the person who kidnapped her hasn't been caught. While kidnapped, there was a girl that was there, who she named Lily, that has never been identified either. Astrid's in the news again because she's been kidnapped once again. And Fern is starting to recognize things in Astrid's story, things that she can't make sense of.
Honestly, this was a tense read that I read so quickly. I didn't want to put it down when I was reading it. Yet, it was a bit predictable? I guessed the big twist because I found it very obvious. Sure, I had a few other theories alongside it but my main one was the one that turned out to be correct. Still, it's a twisty read that's got a lot going on and I'm a fan. Definitely checking out Collins first book!
CW: kidnapping, psychological abuse, bullying, neglect, homophobia, religious homophobia, and infertility
This was such a quick read. I devoured it in a couple of days because it was so good. It's definitely a book that you want to read very quickly because there's so much going on.
Fern has generalized anxiety disorder and multiple phobias. She spirals quickly and catastrophizes everything. Luckily, her husband, Eric, is understanding and is good for her. They're trying for a baby -- one that she's not sure she's ready for -- and is going down to help her father move. Her relationship with her father is tense because he was a psychological researcher, one who liked to focus on fear and whose experiments get blocked because of how unethical they are. To substitute that, growing up he would do the Experiments with her, basically scaring her one way or another, documenting it, and then asking her questions to learn more about fear.
Linked to this is Astrid, someone that Fern doesn't know... or does she? Astrid was kidnapped as a child and the person who kidnapped her hasn't been caught. While kidnapped, there was a girl that was there, who she named Lily, that has never been identified either. Astrid's in the news again because she's been kidnapped once again. And Fern is starting to recognize things in Astrid's story, things that she can't make sense of.
Honestly, this was a tense read that I read so quickly. I didn't want to put it down when I was reading it. Yet, it was a bit predictable? I guessed the big twist because I found it very obvious. Sure, I had a few other theories alongside it but my main one was the one that turned out to be correct. Still, it's a twisty read that's got a lot going on and I'm a fan. Definitely checking out Collins first book!
DNF @ 25%. I really tried with this one, but I just couldn't get into it. The main character was really frustrating, though her mental health issues were completely understandable with her upbringing. There was some anti-religious stuff I found offensive and that kind of killed most of my desire to keep reading. I also thought the mystery of what happened to Astrid all those years ago was really obvious. While I stopped reading at about the 25% mark, I did skip to the last few chapters, just to confirm my suspicion and I was right. I'm glad I didn't waste my time with all the chapter in between.