Review: The Crash by Freida McFadden

  

Print Length: 384 pages

Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Press (January 28, 2025)

From Goodreads.com: The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Well, on the plus side I enjoyed this story of hers far more than I enjoyed whatever The Housemaid was supposed to be. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tegan had a brain and was capable of using it. Yes, her situation was horrible, but she was determined to use anything (and I do mean anything) in order to try and save herself and protect her unborn child. She was the most likeable character in the entire story. 

Which is pretty sad considering for the majority of it, there are two other characters who also feature predominantly. Hank, who despite us being told is a giant of a man and capable of being so scary that people tend to think twice before crossing him, doesn't seem to have the balls to stand up to his wife. And Polly, man I get it, she was mentally unstable, but the lengths that she was willing to go to were unbelievable. What made her more insufferable was the fact that she took one look at Teagan and assumed she knew everything about her without ever bothering to talk to her about her pregnancy, claiming that it was obvious that Tegan didn't care about the health of her baby, but yet Polly refused to take her to the hospital so she could get her the proper medical care that both she and the baby needed. How does that make her any better? 'Oh but she wanted the baby', yeah, but she never had any real plan on how she was going to make that happen either. 

Now let's talk about the plot. To me, this didn't really work as a thriller as I never felt even the slightest bit unsettled while reading this. In fact, there were chapters where I was nothing short of bored. I honestly believe where things started going downhill was when the narrative changed from Teagan's POV to Polly's so soon in the book. Before that there was a layer to the story that keep my interest. After all, Teagan can hear the crashes and the yelling upstairs. She can see the bruises on Polly's arm when she comes down with food. I feel like the author should have played around more with the concept that Hank was the one behind everything. That Polly was only doing as he demanded. Polly could have used her so called fear of her husband to bond with Teagan. She could have made promises to help her escape, once Teagan was more stable, and she could have even used that as a bargaining chip to get Teagan to let her examine her injured foot, keeping the infection from spreading the way that it did. Heck, it may even have enticed Teagan to drink all of the tea that Polly had made, especially if Polly had brought her own (obviously missing one key ingredient) cup to drink with her. And only then comes the twist that it had really been Polly all along.

Sadly however, this was not done, and even as unhinged as I mentioned Polly was, all she really did was feed Teagan & help her use a bedpan. Sure she crushed up some Benadryl in her food that knocked her out, but to be fair, Teagan probably needed that rest after her ordeal. And the way the ankle injury was actually portrayed made me roll my eyes more than once as it went like this - 

Teagan: My foot is really injured.

Polly: (a former nurser) Yes dear, you should really let me take your boot off so we can look at it. 

Teagan: NO! It hurts too bad! 

Then later on it was because she could not longer feel her toes, but she was "scared" of what it would look like. Girl. As someone with medical training in my background, I would have gotten that boot off of her the first night whether she wanted me to or not. 

Finally we have what I'm sure the author intended to be the shocking twists, however (at least for me), they were so obvious a blind man could have seen them coming a mile away. And after everything to see Teagan just forgive Polly and Hank for what they had done was infuriating. Yes, Hank saved her from freezing to death in her car after her accident, and yes, Polly saved her life later on, but neither of those things diminish what she suffered because of them. And then for them to get their own happily-ever-after? Are you kidding? Polly needed serious mental help, not the neighbors orphaned child. I'm honestly shocked the author not only thought this would be a satisfying ending for the readers, but also that she thought she could explain away the earlier comment of Polly having been blacklisted from fostering or adopting due to her past behavior (and forced stay in a mental hospital) by saying that her therapist wrote a glowing letter attesting to her sanity. It was so absurd it was laughable. 

Sadly this is now the second novel that I have read by this author that I have not enjoyed. But I am willing to give them one more chance on one of their most recommended novels. And if that one doesn't work for me either, then I'm going to have no choice but to unfortunately add this author to the (short) list of ones that I just don't vibe with.