Book Review # 11 - The Other Couple by Cathryn Grant

 

The Other Couple by Cathryn Grant  

About the book:

 

They planned a dream vacation. They got a trip to hell.

Maggie and Brad are on vacation at Lake Tahoe when they meet another couple, Skye and Joe. The four hit it off so well that Maggie invites their new friends to share her beautiful lakeside rental.

What she doesn’t realize is Skye and Joe aren’t just some random couple. They have been watching Maggie and Brad, have chosen them carefully….

And now, when they discover that Maggie has a secret that could destroy her marriage, they start turning the screws, pushing their own sinister agenda. But have they chosen their victim wisely? Or does Maggie also have a dark side?

As the pressure builds, what should have been a dream vacation begins to look more like the inner circle of hell. Before it's over, all four will be changed forever – and at least one of them will be dead…

My take:

 

The story begins with a couple, Joe and Skye looking for another couple to con and run away with whatever they can lay their hands on, when they meet Maggie and Brad, as they dine at a lake side restaurant alongside Lake Tahoe. Maggie and Brad own a boat and they are planning to spend a week in a rented house. Maggie instantly gets along with the extroverted Skye, and soon the two get invited over for dinner at Maggie and Brad's place. 

 

The stay prolongs as Joe and Skye pretend to get scammed on their own reservations. Joe and Skye decide to enjoy the vacation at the expense of Maggie and Brad. But soon Joe stumbles upon a secret which he can use to blackmail Maggie, and a game of chess begins. Who checkmates whom?

 

The story is initially slow paced, but I didn't mind, because I enjoyed the description of the rented house that overlooks lake Tahoe, the boat and the beautiful scenery, and I actually visualised it as I read in my mind's eye. The POV shuttles between the four of them, and the twisted storyline slowly takes form as we go ahead. After about 60%, till when the book is slightly sluggish, it catches sudden pace and many unexpected things happen and unravel. It will spoil to reveal anything, but I will definitely say the twist at the end was unexpected for me.

 

The characters are well defined and stay true to their character. Despite the slow pace, the flow of the story keeps us hooked till the end. I read many reviews that criticise the book for excess detailing such as that of food. But to tell the truth, I actually loved that too. Especially the way Skye and Brad cooked Tacos.

 

Overall, it was a gripping read and I enjoyed it till the last line. 

 

I rate it 4 stars. 

 

Book Review #10 - Brain Damage by Freida McFadden

 

Brain Damage by Freida McFadden

Brain Damage by Freida McFadden

About the book:

After years of hard work, Dr. Charly McKenna finally has it all. Prosperous career as a dermatologist? Check. Spacious apartment overlooking Central Park? Check. Handsome lawyer husband? Double check.

Then one night, a bullet rips through the right side of her skull and she loses everything.

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her... before he finishes the job he started.

My take:

The book has been described on Amazon as a twisted psychological thriller that will keep you guessing. Well, I was certainly left guessing till the end about what I was reading!

After reading amazing five-star reviews, I purchased this book. And after reading two other psychological thrillers from the same author which I loved reading, I had absolutely no doubt in my mind. But I was in for a very big disappointment. This is easily one of the worst books I have read.

The story is about Dr. Charlotte Mckenna, a dermatologist, who has a great practice and owns a plush apartment overlooking the central park. She marries Clark, a handsome lawyer, who was once her patient, and pursued her till she agreed. One day, she gets shot in the head and develops hemispatial neglect on her left side of the body, along with loss of memory.

I had expected it to be a nice thriller where the story builds to the climax where she gets shot, and we are left wondering who did it and why. However, right from page 1, you easily guess who did it and why.

The main character, Charlotte, is hardly likable in the part before she was shot. She has absolutely no self-esteem and probably that is how she tolerates the jerk of a husband she married without even getting to know him better. Her cat seems to have better intelligence and instincts. Even in the part after she was shot, he is absent from her life for the majority part, and then reappears to make a deal with Charlotte about taking care of her in return for using her disability payments to sponsor his and his girlfriend's stay at Charlotte's apartment, humiliating and insulting her in every way possible. The same girlfriend he was cheating on with before she got shot. And yet Charlotte puts up with him just because she feels she has no other option! This was too spineless for my taste!

There are hardly any other characters to make us even suspect anyone else, and none of the characters is well developed. Almost 80% of the story is like a memoir of a person who is recovering from severe brain injury and focuses on unnecessary details of speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy that lead the story nowhere.

The only character I really liked was Jamie, but again, his character seemed very sporadic, he wasn't any valuable addition to the story, and the way his relationship with Charlotte was stretched till the very end was irritating.

The author being a physician, I can say she has written this part brilliantly, giving us a real picture inside a rehabilitation centre for the brain-damaged. But that is not why I picked this book for. It is very depressing to read and doesn’t add anything to the story at all.

So even though I like the author and the way she writes, this book could have been promoted as a diary of a brain-injured person, and not as a psychological thriller that keeps us guessing till the end. The only thing I kept guessing was when the book would actually end.

I rate it one star, the lowest I have ever rated.

Book Review #9 : The Wife Upstairs by Freida McFadden

 

About the book:

Victoria Barnett has it all.

A great career as a nurse practitioner. A handsome and loving husband. A beautiful home in the suburbs and a plan to fill it with children. Life is perfect—or so it seems.

Then she’s in a terrible accident… and everything falls apart.

Now Victoria is unable to walk. She can’t feed or dress herself. She can’t even speak. She is confined to the top floor of her house with twenty-four-hour care.

Sylvia Robinson is hired by Victoria’s husband to help care for her. But it turns out Victoria isn’t as impaired as Sylvia was led to believe. There’s a story Victoria desperately wants to tell… if only she could get out the words.

Then Sylvia discovers Victoria’s diary hidden away in a drawer.

And what’s inside is shocking.

My Take:

Sylvia Robinson has hit a low in her life when she finds herself jobless, with hardly any savings, desperately looking for a job, her landlord threatening to throw her out, ex-boyfriend Freddy stalking her, when she meets the handsome and charming Adam Bernett. Adam offers her a dream job. The job of taking care of his wife Victoria, who is half-paralyzed and wheelchair-bound after a serious accident at home.

As Sylvia begins living in the big palace that Adam owns in Montauk, far away from Manhattan, almost inside the Atlantic ocean and starts caring for Victoria, she starts getting curious about Victoria and her life before the accident. When she gets the chance to read Victoria’s diary, secrets begin revealing themselves. The diary chronicles the transition of Victoria from a nurse practitioner in Manhattan to a stay-at-home wife of a New York Times bestseller celebrity novelist. The more Sylvia reads, the more intrigued she gets. Because what she reads in the diary is completely opposite of what she is witnessing around her. And then, Victoria begins giving her clues, as she desperately tries to tell her something.

The plot is very gripping, and even though a ‘diary’ is a somewhat commonly used concept especially in this genre, still this story stands out due to the way it unfolds. The narration alternates between Sylvia’s story and the diary of Victoria, making the read fast-paced and interesting. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger and even though we have a general idea of what to expect, we are left guessing and second-guessing right up to the end.

This is the second book of this author that I have read, and I would love to read more from her.

I rate it 4 stars.