One by One by Freida McFadden
From New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a dark, twisting thriller about a group of friends lost in the one by one, they each will fall, and only the killer will return home alive…
A night spent sleeping on dirt and leaves is not how Claire Matchett expected to spend her vacation. She thought this would be a break from the stresses of work and raising her young children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubs with friends. It sounded like heaven.
Then Claire’s minivan breaks down on a lonely dirt road. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to hike the rest of the way to their hotel. But it turns out the woods aren’t as easy to navigate as they thought. Hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost. And as they navigate deeper into the woods, the members of their party are struck down mysteriously one by one. Has a wild animal been hunting them? Or is the hunter one of them? But as more time passes, one thing becomes clear. Only one of them will return home alive.
Review:
Oh, Freida. In all honesty, before this book, I’d only read McFadden’s “The Housemaid,” and while it wasn’t perfect, it was a fun ride. I needed something quick and a little crazy to help cleanse the palette a bit, so I randomly selected One by One, hoping for a crazy ride similar to that of The Housemaid. I know – I probably should have read The Housemaid Returns, but the thought of a group of friends getting lost – and then hunted – in the woods spoke to me. Sadly, the execution did not live up to my expectations.
The synopsis promised a thrilling and suspenseful tale of a group of friends experiencing a horrifying ordeal in the woods. However, this novel fell short of expectations in several key areas, leaving me disappointed and unsatisfied.
The book is mainly told from Claire Matchett’s point of view, and then periodically, we get “anonymous” chapters from someone we assume is either the killer or someone behind the issues the group of friends is experiencing.
Claire is unhappily married and has two kids. She, and her husband, Noah, barely speak and can hardly stand to be around one another. The two of them have set out to spend a week at a resort in the Colorado mountains, and joining them are her best friend from college, Lindsay, and Lindsay’s new beau, Warner, as well as Noah’s best friend from college, Jack, and his wife, Michelle. Relationships are strained all the way around. Lindsay and Claire don’t like Michelle, marital trouble seems to be brewing between Jack and Michelle as well, and Warner is kind of a dick. When the van breaks down in the middle of the woods, and our six suburbanites are forced to hike through the woods to find the resort, they get lost, and then they begin to drop like flies. In theory, this sounds great and right up my alley, but it never fully hit the mark.
One of the most glaring issues with One by One was the lack of atmosphere and sense of dread. Despite the characters being in a dire and life-threatening situation, there was an absence of tension that made it difficult for me to feel the terror they allegedly felt. I knew I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I never had a clear image of the eerie and foreboding atmosphere that should have permeated the narrative.
Furthermore, the characters in the novel failed to elicit any sympathy from me. They were all super basic, and pretty much every one of them was a cliche with little development. As a result, when these characters began to meet unfortunate fates, it was hard to feel any true sense of loss or fear. The suspenseful moments were few and far between, and when they did occur, they were underwhelming and lacking in intensity. There was no sense of urgency or desperation, which left me feeling disconnected from the supposed peril faced by the characters.
Additionally, the pacing of the plot was uneven, with long stretches of mundane hiking and exploration that failed to build tension or advance the narrative. The characters eventually wonder if they’ve been walking in circles, and I can see why they felt that way because I, too, kept thinking, “Haven’t we already been through this?”
McFadden is known for her crazy twists, so I kept reading, hoping for a big payoff. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as jaw-dropping as I’d hoped. The killer’s identity was revealed in a way that lacked any real impact – in fact, I’d predicted this very early on. By the time I got to the very end, the final twist was more of a “hmm, okay” than a true “Oh My God” moment.
While the concept had potential, the execution left much to be desired.
