Best-selling novelist/part-time physician Freida McFadden writes intoxicating mystery/thriller/character studies that are often impossible to put down. Her prose is concise, her study of human nature’s many dark complexities is insightful, and her demented glee in catching her reader off-guard with an endless array of plot twists and turns is highly amusing and enthralling, to say the least. All of McFadden’s strengths are on glowing, flashing display in The Teacher, but it should also be noted that there are a couple of sizable faults to be found within it, as well.
The story is told from the perspective of three characters: Eve Bennett, an unsatisfied thirty-year-old high school math teacher; Nathaniel Bennett, Eve’s strikingly handsome forty-year-old husband who teaches English at the same school; and Adeline Severson, a bullied, outcast, and emotionally disturbed sixteen-year-old junior who is in both their classes.
As is often the case with McFadden’s work, the less said about what happens after the story’s set-up, the better. In classic McFadden fashion, she slowly unravels each of the main characters’ identities and backstories, layer by layer and secret by secret, in a riveting manner that adds to the book’s overall intrigue. As the novel progresses, you further doubt each character’s true nature, integrity, and trustworthiness, and you come to realize that they could all quite possibly be entirely unreliable narrators. The endless discoveries of and increasing doubts towards each main character are a large part of the thrill of the book and its effortlessly page-turning fun.
As high-quality as The Teacher is, however, it does succumb to certain (mostly forgivable) blunders. The set-up takes far too long to gain steam, and you almost have to know McFadden’s previous work in order to put your trust in the book and have faith that it is going somewhere interesting. While the book does eventually grow exciting and dramatically rich, it risks losing you in the beginning with a few too many mundane details and scenes.
The twists—the McFadden gems she so obviously loves to torment us with and that we keep coming back for more of—are as audacious and as shocking as ever. Almost all of them make perfect sense, add to the story in a surprising and satisfying manner, and offer a revelation that propels the characters in a direction you never could have imagined.
Then there’s the final twist… Yes, it’s a shocker that will have you reeling. However, the more thought you give it, the more you will see that McFadden not only misguides you before its revelation, but she directly lies to you in order to achieve such a shocking surprise. While you could view the final twist as the product of a cleverly executed unreliable narrator, it’s not explored or explained enough to be believable. As is, the final twist is a bit beneath McFadden’s talent, and it’s something of a cheap cheat.
Faults aside, one of the most impressive things about The Teacher is the way it goes to some truly dark places without alienating you by getting too graphic or exploitative. McFadden’s class and wit make her storylines accessible, despite her sometimes-bleak view of humanity and the depths of depravity to which some of her characters sink.
The Teacher is yet another strong example of a Freida McFadden thriller. While it has its imperfections, longtime fans will not be disappointed, and newcomers will be left wanting more. Even when she is somewhat shy of her best, no author quite knows how to grab your attention the way that Freida McFadden does.
GRADE: B+
