Scan barcode
A review by kathywadolowski
Never Lie by Freida McFadden
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Ok so hear me out: is Freida McFadden is the most overrated modern thriller author publishing today?
The first dud of hers I read, "One by One," I thought might just be a fluke. So I turned to one of her more popular/recent/lauded books, "Never Lie," and thought surely this would show me what I'd been missing. And instead, I found a MESS.
Because this book uses one of my most despised techniques: the entire (present) storyline is told from a first-person POV, but then when we get to the end we find out thatthe narrator was actually the culprit, and had all the information she'd been feigning ignorance about the whole time!!!! When you know this, it turns out, the entire book you just read actually makes no sense. Because WHY was she, in her first-person POV, acting like she'd never been to the house before and was scared of it? Like Adrienne Hale was a stranger? LIKE SHE KNEW NOTHING?!? If this book had been in the third person—or even in first person but with a reason for the narrator to lie to us, a technique that exists!!—it would be different because we wouldn't have been flat out lied to for no reason. Plot holes abound, and I'm so tired of authors essentially duping their readers with nonsense and getting away with it just because the twist has good shock value. THINK, PEOPLE!!!! Because when that twist also essentially negates the entirety of the narration that came before, my time has been totally wasted and no twist is worth that.
I also thought that the storytelling was just tooooo on the nose... like, beyond just giving us hints about what the possible twists could be, McFadden led us TOO obviously down a path so we knew we were being mislead. That's lazy writing in my opinion... I want to draw the wrong conclusion but FEEL like I'm figuring stuff out, only to be blindsided by other important stuff that I'd overlooked or ignored. THAT is the stuff that good twists are made of. And, critically, they have to make logical sense.
Now I will say, in a different context these twists *could've* been great... they were just spoiled by bad construction/contextualization that made them nonsensical. And I did find the past storyline involving Dr. Adrienne Hale to actually be quite interesting/creepy, and I honestly thought that narrative alone might've made a better book. But as it is, this book is an incoherent mess that made me furious when I reached the end.
Keep in mind that I'm definitely the outlier with this opinion; so if you love Freida McFadden or are intrigued by this story (or both!), then I hope you love this one!!! But so far, despite the insane hype, she is just not doing it for me.
The first dud of hers I read, "One by One," I thought might just be a fluke. So I turned to one of her more popular/recent/lauded books, "Never Lie," and thought surely this would show me what I'd been missing. And instead, I found a MESS.
Because this book uses one of my most despised techniques: the entire (present) storyline is told from a first-person POV, but then when we get to the end we find out that
I also thought that the storytelling was just tooooo on the nose... like, beyond just giving us hints about what the possible twists could be, McFadden led us TOO obviously down a path so we knew we were being mislead. That's lazy writing in my opinion... I want to draw the wrong conclusion but FEEL like I'm figuring stuff out, only to be blindsided by other important stuff that I'd overlooked or ignored. THAT is the stuff that good twists are made of. And, critically, they have to make logical sense.
Now I will say, in a different context these twists *could've* been great... they were just spoiled by bad construction/contextualization that made them nonsensical. And I did find the past storyline involving Dr. Adrienne Hale to actually be quite interesting/creepy, and I honestly thought that narrative alone might've made a better book. But as it is, this book is an incoherent mess that made me furious when I reached the end.
Keep in mind that I'm definitely the outlier with this opinion; so if you love Freida McFadden or are intrigued by this story (or both!), then I hope you love this one!!! But so far, despite the insane hype, she is just not doing it for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder