Book Reviews: The Tenant, The Crash, Never Lie, and The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer | The Unfiltered Bookshelf Ep. 1 | Gina Caracci
Listen to the full episode: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/
Watch full video reviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Shop all books on my Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/ginamariefit
After my car accident and the TBI that followed I could not read.
Not would not. Could not.
Letters came out backwards. My eyes moved right to left when the page went left to right. When I tried to write, what my brain was thinking and what appeared on the page were two completely different things. Retention was gone. Concentration was fractured. Eye tracking was unreliable in a way that made the physical act of reading feel like fighting against my own brain on every single line.
For two years I could not finish a book. And for someone who grew up using intelligence as the one level playing field in an unstable world, that loss was not just about reading. It was about identity. About the foundation everything else was built on. About the thing that no circumstance could take from me, until it did.
And then in January I picked up The Tenant by Freida McFadden.
And I finished it. For the first time since my accident I finished a full book without struggling. Without the letters going backwards. Without breaking down. And then I picked up another one. And then another. Four books in January after two years of not finishing a single one.
What I did not know when I picked up the first one was who Freida McFadden actually is.
She is a physician who specializes in brain injuries and disorders.
The author whose words my recovering brain could finally hold onto is someone who has spent her career understanding exactly the kind of damage that made reading impossible for me. I do not need to explain what that means. I just needed to share it. And I needed to share the books.
This is The Unfiltered Bookshelf. A monthly series on Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer where I share what I am reading, my unfiltered ratings and reactions, and honest recommendations on what to pick up and what to skip. This is Episode 1. And it starts exactly where it should.
“Reading found its way back to me. And I found joy in it again even though I will never be exactly the same as I was before I lost it. That is enough. More than enough.”
Who Is Freida McFadden and Why Is Everyone Reading Her?
Before the reviews I want to give you some context on Freida McFadden because if you are not already familiar with her you are about to be.
Freida McFadden is a practicing physician who has worked in brain injury medicine for years. She writes psychological thrillers and has become one of the most talked about authors in the BookTok and BookTube space over the last two years. Her signature style involves unreliable narrators, deeply unsettling domestic situations, and plot twists that you genuinely do not see coming even though in hindsight she laid every clue right in front of you.
Her medical background shows in her writing in a way that is hard to describe until you experience it. There is a precision to the psychology of her characters, a genuine understanding of how people operate under extreme stress and deception, that does not come from research alone. It comes from someone who understands the human brain from the inside out. And she uses that understanding to build stories that are impossible to put down.
She has written dozens of books and the quality is remarkably consistent. Some are stronger than others and I will tell you exactly which ones. But as an author she is someone I now completely understand why my brain responded to the way it did.
The January Reviews
The Tenant by Freida McFadden: 4 out of 5
This is the one that started everything. The book I picked up without knowing who the author was, without knowing I was about to finish my first book since my accident, without knowing any of what would follow.
The Tenant follows a woman who moves into a new apartment and begins to suspect that something is deeply wrong with her landlord and the previous tenant who mysteriously disappeared. The setup sounds familiar but McFadden executes it with a tightness and a tension that keeps you turning pages well past when you planned to stop. The reveals are earned. The atmosphere is genuinely unsettling. And the ending delivers.
This is not her strongest work but as an entry point into her writing it is excellent. The story is contained, the pacing is sharp, and the characters are developed enough that you invest in them before the floor drops out. If you are new to Freida McFadden this is a great place to start. And if you are me it is the book that gave something back that you thought was gone.
Who should read it: Anyone new to Freida McFadden or psychological thrillers. Anyone looking for a fast contained read that delivers on its premise without overstaying its welcome.
The Crash by Freida McFadden: 3.75 out of 5
The second book I picked up in January and the one that confirmed the first was not a one-off. My brain was cooperating. Reading was back. And I needed to know if that was going to hold.
The Crash centers on a car accident and its aftermath. Given my own history with a car accident this was not a light read for me personally but McFadden handles the psychological aftermath of trauma with the complexity it deserves. The story builds tension steadily and the character work is strong.
The rating sits at three point seven five because the middle section loses some of the momentum the opening builds. Thrillers live and die by pacing and there are stretches here where McFadden slows in a way her best work does not allow. It is still very good. Still completely engaging. Still the kind of book you finish in fewer sittings than you planned. It just does not land with the same precision as the books on either side of it in my January reading.
Who should read it: Readers who enjoy psychological suspense with a strong focus on trauma and aftermath. Not the best entry point for new McFadden readers but absolutely worth getting to once you are hooked.
Never Lie by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5
This is where things elevated significantly. Never Lie was the moment I understood why Freida McFadden has the following she has. And it is the book I recommend first when someone asks me where to start with her.
Never Lie operates on multiple timelines and uses found audio recordings in a way that is genuinely creative and deeply effective. The structure itself becomes part of the tension. You think you know what is happening and then the floor drops out and you realize you had been reading an entirely different story than the one you thought you were in.
The twist in this one is one of the best I have encountered in years of reading the genre. It is not a cheap reveal. It is something that has been built methodically from the first pages and lands with the kind of weight that makes you want to go back and reread the beginning immediately. The dual timeline execution is clean. The characterization is McFadden at her sharpest. And the emotional payoff earns the investment the book asks of you.
Four point five out of five. This is the recommendation. This is where you start.
Who should read it: Everyone. Start here if you have never read Freida McFadden. Return here if you have read her and want to understand why she is exceptional.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5
The most well known of the four January books and the one that put Freida McFadden on the map for a mass audience. It earns every bit of the attention it has received.
A woman takes a job as a housemaid for a wealthy family and quickly realizes that nothing about this situation is what it appears to be. The domestic suspense genre has been done many times. McFadden does it better than almost anyone writing in this space right now. The atmosphere is suffocating in the best way. The tension between the characters builds with a slowness that makes the eventual release hit exactly as hard as it should. And the payoff is genuinely satisfying in a way that a lot of thrillers promise and fail to deliver.
Four point five out of five. Tied with Never Lie as my favorite of the January reads and the book that confirmed I was not going back to not reading. This was now mine again. Reading was mine again. And Freida McFadden had given it back.
Who should read it: Anyone who loves domestic suspense, unreliable narrators, and stories where the seemingly perfect life is hiding something deeply wrong underneath it. Also anyone who has been recommended this book seventeen times and kept putting it off. Stop putting it off.
January at a Glance
The Tenant: 4 out of 5 — Start here if you are new to McFadden
The Crash: 3.75 out of 5 — Good but not her strongest pacing
Never Lie: 4.5 out of 5 — Great option shows her range.
The Housemaid: 4.5 out of 5 — The one that made her famous and the best place to start reading her books.
What Finding Reading Again Actually Means
I have permanent damage from my TBI. I will never be exactly who I was before my accident. My brain works differently now and there are things that are harder and will always be harder. That is a reality I live with and have made peace with in a way that is ongoing and not always clean.
But January taught me something about permanent damage that I did not fully understand before. It does not mean permanent loss. It means things come back differently. The path is not the same as the one you had before but there is still a path. And sometimes the thing you stopped trying for because the trying hurt too much is still available to you if you are willing to try one more time.
I finished four books in January. After two years of not finishing one. And the author who got me back into reading is a physician who has spent her career understanding exactly what happened to my brain.
Reading found its way back to me. And I found joy in it again. That is enough. More than enough. And every month on The Unfiltered Bookshelf I am going to bring you into what I am reading. Because reading is part of who I am again. And anything that is part of who I am belongs here.
“I finished four books in January. After two years of not finishing one. And the author who gave me reading back is a physician who specializes in brain injuries and disorders.”
LISTEN, WATCH AND SHOP
Listen to the full Unfiltered Bookshelf episode: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/
Watch full video reviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Shop all books mentioned on my Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/ginamariefit
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefit
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefit
Website and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/
Subscribe to Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer so you never miss a Tuesday episode or a monthly Unfiltered Bookshelf drop. And if you pick up any of these books send me a DM on Instagram and tell me what you thought.
