A review by klenda_vee
The Inmate by Freida McFadden

dark mysterious 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? Yes

2.0

The most I can say for the lead character is that she’s fully aware that she’s making stupid choices that make things go horribly wrong.

 The majority of her internal dialogue is “I know it’s a bad idea to share this information/allow this thing. Someone just told me not to! But it seems harmless enough,” for a solid eight hours. 
This isn’t bad in itself (it’s fairly realistic) to start an arc, but we don’t get no arcs today. She makes the same mistakes 99% through the book as she did 5% through and the nature of the mistakes pushing the narrative makes it a deeply frustrating book that I’m not sure why I finished. My consistent feeling was “I could put this down at any point and not feel any drive to finish it.”

The writing technique and prose itself is otherwise very good,  the audiobook reader (Leslie Howard) is excellent, and the pacing of the mystery is good and well-constructed. 
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