Book Review: The Tenant by Freida McFadden

By: Zhendi C., Grade 10

Overall rating 4/5.

Is what you’ve seen really what it is? Or isn’t? Or is it? Or…isn’t?

In the book, the protagonist Blake accepted a tenant called Whitney into his house. She looked pretty, kind, and harmless until Blake found out emptied shampoo and toothpaste, rotten apples gathered on the top shelf, the limonene in his laundry detergent which he was extremely allergic to. Convinced Whitney was behind all of this, he started to confront her. Their relationships worsened. Blake was out of his mind. He told his beloved fiancée Krista about what Whitney had done, but Krista believed none of them, claiming he was paranoid and then she left the house. After Blake found his neighbor Mr. Zimmerly’s body and three bloody fingers in his kitchen, he couldn’t bear anymore. He found out Whitney’s old home address and asked her mother. And that’s when he saw the photograph hanging on the wall, the family picture of Whitney’s family. The little girl looked so familiar. It was…

Oh no.

The theme of this book is all about trust and revenge. The plot twist in this book is truly amazing. You never know what is true and what is not. Even after the story proceeded into the epilogue, Freida revealed another hidden layer of Whitney, which made me gasp—humans are such a complicated creature. Other people argued Freida ran out of ways to write thrillers, but I enjoyed it a lot. I especially love the way Freida characterizes Krista, a beautiful, charming woman with a psychopathic and manipulative mind. During the first part I thought Krista was an idiot, like “why would she believe Whitney instead of Blake?!”, but then I realized I’m an idiot, and Krista was stunningly clever. She could plan a perfect crime and get away with it easily. She won’t let any men who betrayed her get away. She was an underestimated genius, except her intelligence was used in a wrong way. I kind of admire her, even though she's such a notorious villain—YOU ARE NEVER GONNA MESS WITH ME, I KILL EVERYONE WHO STEPS IN MY WAY.

Although I really enjoyed this book and gave it a high rating, there’s a lot of flaws I must point out:

• From around Chapter 10 to Chapter 30 it was all about how “Whitney” tormented Blake. You could literally skip this and have absolutely no problem continuing reading, until after Mr. Zimmerly dies you will learn something new. 
• “What the hell” or “S**t” is the standard turning point of finding something terrible. And it’s pretty predictable about what’s going to happen. 
• Absolutely no introduction about who is the man trying to commit suicide, he felt like an NPC just popped out of nowhere and then disappeared, only to create some sort of tension. Maybe I missed something.
• No explanation of how the victims were dealt with, and it seems that after Krista is gone everything was good. This makes no sense.

Anyways, I highly recommend this book as an interesting thriller to read during school. The twists are huge and can make you jump or encourage you to predict what’s going to happen next. If you like clever villains or intense plots, this is the match for you. You will finish part 2 in a minute once you get there, the realization of someone behind the scene is just satisfying.

CHECK OUT THIS BOOK: https://paloalto.bibliocommons.com/v2/search?query=the%20tenant&searchType=smart