The Wife Upstairs – Book Review

An alternative cover edition can be found here

Victoria Barnett has it all.

A great career. A handsome and loving husband. A beautiful home in the suburbs and a plan to fill it with children. Life is perfect—or so it seems.

Then she’s in a terrible accident… and everything falls apart.

Now Victoria is unable to walk. She can’t feed or dress herself. She can’t even speak. She is confined to the top floor of her house with twenty-four-hour care.

Sylvia Robinson is hired by Victoria’s husband to help care for her. But it turns out Victoria isn’t as impaired as Sylvia was led to believe. There’s a story Victoria desperately wants to tell… if only she could get out the words.

Then Sylvia discovers Victoria’s diary hidden away in a drawer.

And what’s inside is shocking.

I am reading all Freida McFadden’s books and this is one of the books that I got my hands on.

The Wife Upstairs talks about this girl Sylvie who was unexpectedly given a job by a best selling author Adam–the job is look after his wife, the paralyzed Victoria. Sylvie readily accepts the job as she is in desperate need for money but she has to move into their almost mansion house located in the middle of nowhere. As Sylvie moves in, she comes across Victoria’s diary and starts reading it.

Victoria used to have it all–a perfect career as an ER nurse and of course her budding romance with handsome Adam. But as the relationship progressed, Victoria couldn’t help but realize that Adam isn’t picture perfect as he seemed. In fact, Adam is jealous, obsessive and controlling. As Sylvie reads her diary, the Adam she knew sounded different from what Victoria is saying. Did Sylvie make a right decision to accept the job? Is she in danger?

Like all her books, The Wife Upstairs is fast paced and page turning. That was the only thing. However, unlike some of her books, this was far too predictable. We already know who the villain is, we know what the ending is going to be (well mostly I did) so as a result, I didn’t really enjoy this book as much as I did with the others. The ending was too predictable and the twists were all predictable in my opinion as well. I could safely say that in my opinion, the Wife Upstairs might not really be her best–although it is a lot better than her recently released novel The Co-Worker, which by far in my opinion is her not best.

And this book also reminded me of Verity by Colleen Hoover–I may not be a fan of Colleen Hoover but Verity is by far my favorite Colleen Hoover novel. The plot line is exactly the same although the main protagonist’s stay in the house is the only difference. If you haven’t read the Verity, go ahead and read and then you can read this book.

Overall, this book is worth 3.5 stars.