Ward D Paperback – March 4, 2025

I think this is my new favorite Frieda book. It was so good. Not her new-normal totally out of left-field twists, but still very twisty and a little creepy. It was so good. Highly recommend this one to anyone who is thinking about picking it up!!

Ward D was a quick intriguing read! I liked our characters even though I didn’t know who to trust half the time. The storyline/characters really make you go back and forth on who you should be really trusting, who lying, and what’s really going on at the ward. Freida mcfadden does a really good job of writing interesting characters that truly make you flip flop on who to take seriously. I hadn’t guessed what was happening but I did have a bit of a suspicion with some of the characters. I also liked the ending/epilogue it was a nice addition plus it could kind of be interpreted as open ended (at least to me) as I can imagine how things would play out further down the line. Overall I liked how things had played out, the twist and characters were both enjoyable to read. It was a fun thrilling novel that keeps you guessing!

This is definitely a psychological thriller, and I thoroughly enjoyed every unexpected twist. Highly recommend reading this book! It was a really good read.

Felt like the story was prolonged. Found myself trying to rush through certain parts. It’s a decent book. I wouldn’t pick it up again.

• A well-written story about Amy (a medical student) and her overnight stay in a psych ward and meeting the denizens therein. The story has excellent pace, with great little cliffhangers at the ends of each chapter to keep you turning the pages. I inhaled this book in a very short time (which is something very rare for me). I loved the incredible pace McFadden was able to maintain, slowly increasing the tension throughout the story. The twists she inserted in the story were also excellent, most of which I did not see coming.• I liked the variety of characters, as well as their uniqueness and vulnerability. Spider-Dan was funny and very memorable, as was Jade. But the other characters (particularly Amy’s ex-boyfriend Cameron and Dr. Beck) could’ve used more description and backfilling. Even the main character, Amy, kind of fell into this bucket for me. In the end, I wasn’t as frightened for Amy as I’d hoped to be when I started the book. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t feel that much attached to her (a fault of the author for not tying me emotionally to Amy).• Overall, I liked the book. It was a fun, exciting read, and a very fast one. At times, though, I found it too unbelievable (the author even admits to some of this in the introduction, that such things would never happen in a psych ward).• The ending wasn’t wholly unexpected, but it does give a satisfying jolt to the reader. While the denouement was necessary, it was just a tiny bit too lengthy for my tastes, and the final handful of paragraphs were just too trite. I think if the author had left the story “on the high road” and not gone down an all-too-familiar finale, it wouldn’t have left me with a final tepid taste.

There isn’t much that surprises me when it comes to reading books. I’m what you’d call a seasoned vet. Having said that, you have to be a pretty good author to fool me in a story line, but I have to say McFadden did an amazing job in keeping the reader guessing.Amy Brenner is a medical student and just recently went through a breakup with her boyfriend, Cameron. Although she would have preferred to not be assigned to Ward D, it was a terrific way for her to earn extra credit and to take her mind off of her breakup.But, as luck would have it, if you can call it that, poor Amy was not only assigned to Ward D, the psyche unit, but her ex-boyfriend was also assigned. And to make matters even worse, one of the patients there was someone that Amy knew very personally. Amy was upset and distraught. Even though, she needed the extra credit to help catapult her medical career.Try as he might, Cameron did everything to let Amy know he made a mistake in breaking up with her. And Amy wasn’t even trying to hear it. She had been there and done that. Besides, Cameron was a huge suck-up and couldn’t get enough of Dr. Beck. It was driving Amy nuts.Speaking of which, Amy and Cameron were assigned patients they needed to follow throughout the evening. Dr. Beck made it clear what the rules were. He gave them the secret code to get out of the building, in case of emergency. He advised that the patients were allowed to roam around and be treated with the utmost respect and more importantly—no matter what they did, neither of them were to go near Seclusion Room One. Hmm? Why couldn’t they go near there?As Amy was making her rounds for the evening, she heard a noise coming from Seclusion One. It sounded like someone snarling and growling. But what was worse this person sounded like he was breaking through the door. Amy was terrified, but she knew no matter what she wasn’t going near that room.Amy returns to the lounge area to see what type of patients Cameron had been observing when she noticed she couldn’t find him. In fact, there were a few patients that were missing too. Where did they go and why? When Amy confronts Dr. Beck about the whereabouts of her friend, Cameron, and some of the patients, he’s just as baffled too. There was one patient everyone was terrified of and one whom Amy was anxious to meet, but would she? In order to find out more, you have to read the book.OMG! Let me tell you, I gobbled up this book so fast it made me angry that I finished it so quickly. This was one of the best horror books I’ve read in quite a while. I’m happy to report I figured it out, but McFadden threw in a twist at the end that caught me by total surprise. And for that, she gets major kudos. It takes one heck of an author to fool me, and she got me in the end. This is my type of horror book! I could not get enough of this story. She wrote the words off the pages. I felt terrified and my heart was beating fast. Those patients were pretty scary and not knowing what was happening was even worse. It’s not knowing that brings fear and makes for a good horror story. McFadden executed that well.

This was a great book and kept my interest the entire time, no slow down with the story. Will be reading more by this author for sure!

Soooo I started this because my sister was like read it it's so good and at first I wasn't liking it because it seemed a bit meh but of course any book about a Psych ward is going to draw you in which this one inevitably did and I glad to report it was a pretty good read but still almost a typical Psych ward kinda book however...I really really wish the author had just left well enough alone at the end of the book because 1. It was unnecessary and 2. It didn't really fit with other parts of the story and felt contradictory and I know she usually does some twist at the end but I felt like with the reveal we already had the twists and didn't need that particular one at all.