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A review by ojtheviking
A Dedicated Friend by Shirley Longford
4.0
3.5 rounded up.
This is the third book I've read in the series published by the Eden Book Society, and I'm really starting to find them quite charming. This one in particular had a very clear story arc, where things developed from something seemingly routine-based and ordinary into something more sinister.
I think the author did a fine job at managing the pacing of this development within the novella's 72-page limit. And the scenario itself lends itself very well to this psychological thriller-style story. A person is already in a weakened state in the hospital, after having undergone surgery, with the body needing to recover, and throughout the story, a feeling of isolation and helplessness emerges more and more, where the main character is just trying to find out when she can go home again and be with her family, whom she may be losing due to an invading element, yet there's always another reason to make her stay just a bit longer.
In my review of another Eden Book Society story, I said that the book reminded me of an anthology story similar to The Twilight Zone and shows like that. I definitely had the same feeling while reading this, imagining how this could have been adapted into a very paranoid and stressful episode.
However, one thing I will point out is that one moment in the story was a bit jarring. This novella set up a writing style where not everything was directly flat out explained, but you started to understand what was going on through other people's behavior, remarks that could have a double meaning, and so on. Yet, at some point, the main character is thinking back at a specific incident in her life, and that part of the novella felt a little bit like over-explanation for the sake of giving the reader a much clearer idea of the possible reason why everything is happening. I feel like this is one of those stories where subtlety is key, as such intentional vagueness adds to the element of psychological thriller vibes, so dropping that huge clue all of a sudden took me a little bit out of that. I'd have preferred if that part also was described more as a "maybe" rather than a definite fact. Also, once things had reached a certain point, the outcome of the story did unfortunately become predictable, so the plot twist at the end was already expected.
Still, of the three books I've read so far from the Eden Book Society collection, this was my favorite.
This is the third book I've read in the series published by the Eden Book Society, and I'm really starting to find them quite charming. This one in particular had a very clear story arc, where things developed from something seemingly routine-based and ordinary into something more sinister.
I think the author did a fine job at managing the pacing of this development within the novella's 72-page limit. And the scenario itself lends itself very well to this psychological thriller-style story. A person is already in a weakened state in the hospital, after having undergone surgery, with the body needing to recover, and throughout the story, a feeling of isolation and helplessness emerges more and more, where the main character is just trying to find out when she can go home again and be with her family, whom she may be losing due to an invading element, yet there's always another reason to make her stay just a bit longer.
In my review of another Eden Book Society story, I said that the book reminded me of an anthology story similar to The Twilight Zone and shows like that. I definitely had the same feeling while reading this, imagining how this could have been adapted into a very paranoid and stressful episode.
However, one thing I will point out is that one moment in the story was a bit jarring. This novella set up a writing style where not everything was directly flat out explained, but you started to understand what was going on through other people's behavior, remarks that could have a double meaning, and so on. Yet, at some point, the main character is thinking back at a specific incident in her life, and that part of the novella felt a little bit like over-explanation for the sake of giving the reader a much clearer idea of the possible reason why everything is happening. I feel like this is one of those stories where subtlety is key, as such intentional vagueness adds to the element of psychological thriller vibes, so dropping that huge clue all of a sudden took me a little bit out of that. I'd have preferred if that part also was described more as a "maybe" rather than a definite fact. Also, once things had reached a certain point, the outcome of the story did unfortunately become predictable, so the plot twist at the end was already expected.
Still, of the three books I've read so far from the Eden Book Society collection, this was my favorite.