The Intruder by Freida McFadden

Casey moves out into a cabin in the woods to start living… kind of off the grid. With an upcoming storm, she’s scared won’t survive the night. But when she finds a little girl covered in blood in her shed, this feeling multiplies. Well then… will she survive the night? And what is the little girl hiding?

Here we go, my first book by Freida! This author has been hyped up on Bookstagram so much that I finally decided to give her a try. And maybe I’ll change my mind about her if I read more of her books, but the first one did not disappoint! I was on edge the whole time, trying to figure out what the little girl’s secret was and whether Casey would make it alive out of this situation. And the plot twist… was plot twisting! It did seem less believable than it should have been, nevertheless, I was still hooked! I will definitely reach for more of her books and hopefully those will be just as good!

Let’s start with the characters. Casey, the main character in the story, is strong and independent, which is great. She likes to do things by herself and stand up for herself. And while I understand this feminist approach, I did find her a little too independent. Why not just let a neighbour help her? But then, if she did, this whole story wouldn’t have happened in the first place. But Casey was likeable, I really enjoyed her deep connection with her late father, it was clear they were close, this relationship was portrayed well. And the same goes for Elle, it felt as if she was a girl from a horror film - this small, quiet, skinny girl, who was capable of anything. Throughout the whole story I was curious what she would do next. As I was getting deeper in the story I felt like the Elle who was in the cabin and Elle from the past were different girls, I felt a bit of a dissonance between these two. Luckily, that was explained later on (don’t worry, not spoiling anything!).

The writing itself was good. Simple, easy to read, a lot of the chapters were finished on cliffhangers which kept me going as I wanted to know what would happen next. I did like the two POVs (it seems like more and more authors decide to take this approach), they complimented each other despite seeming like they didn’t have anything in common, it felt like the story wouldn’t be complete if one of the perspectives was missing. Overall it was a full story, thought through and that everything in it was intentional.

However, I do have one issue that, while it wasn’t too big of a problem for me, might be a problem for other readers. The main premise of the story is Casey having this little girl in the house in the middle of nowhere, scared for her life. But! While Elle does have a knife on her, she is much younger than Casey and seems to be significantly smaller. Casey doesn’t seem to have a real reason to be scared. Even if she was to be attacked with a knife, she should have no issues protecting herself and getting the knife out of the girls hands, especially if she is underfed and very skinny, hence - weak. It might only be my opinion and I might be wrong, but it feels a little unbelievable. Despite that, I enjoyed the story and would easily reach out for another Freid McFadden book.

Rating: 4/5