“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.
But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
They don’t know what I’m capable of…
The hype is real
When one of my fellows suggested this book for the book club, I was almost taken aback by the hype surrounding this publication. I had seen it many, many times online as much as in book shops. Usually, I stay away from books that are intensely hyped but, in this case, and given this synopsis, I was intrigued. It was, furthermore, one of the shortest suggestions and categorized as fast paced on Storygraph. I quickly gave it a chance to draw me in and it immediately succeeded in this attempt. It only took me the first three chapters to be fascinated.
Fan Fiction Vibes
The first half of the book was not not convincing, but it nonetheless threw me off every now and then as it reminded me so much of fanfiction writing. I saw some Handmaid’s Tale dynamics in this story and some a bit too coincidental and obvious turns in the plot. It furthermore moved quite quickly and halfway through the book; things seemed almost fully resolved. This made thoroughly me reconsider my former expectations of the story as much as my perception of the characters. And I also really hoped for a more feminist turn of this story, which mainly plotted two women against each other.
Intense twists and turs
Halfway through the book, I realized that things might not go the way I initially imagined them to go. Or that they are not as I expected them to be. Which intrigued me immensely and made me fly through the last 38% of the book in one evening. An unexpected shift in perspective allowed us to perceive the story from another point of view. This Glass Onion kind of twist was welcomed and made the finale part of the book an extreme pleasure to read. Readers should be aware of some horrific descriptions and actions taking place at the end of the book, which I enjoyed in a sadistic and revenge-driven way. I can guarantee all readers a shocking but also extremely satisfying reading experience.
In conclusion,
This book took me through a lot of emotions and a rollercoaster of changing empathy and perceptions. The author surely surprises us with many turns and contrasts our first ideas of the characters with a shocking twist. The epilogue sets up many more intriguing and dark stories, which I will definitely give a chance.
The author:
#1 Amazon bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specialising in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humour novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe. Source