NETGALLEY – The Fear, Spencer Hamilton – A Review.

The Fear by Spencer Hamilton. Published 11.8.2020 by Nerdy Wordsmith and provided by NetGalley.

Synopsis… “Two women quarantined together. A world falling into chaos. When a virus sweeps across the globe, cities and entire countries shut down overnight. The Fear zooms in on a married couple, Ash and Jack, in one small apartment, growing restless and claustrophobic and paranoid. People are dying in droves. Governments are toppling, imploding, lashing out. Martial law, police states, riots, bioterrorism. No one knows what to believe, who to trust.

As the horror ramps up to apocalyptic levels, Jack is slowly unraveling. She shuts herself away and fears everything. Fears the virus has crawled its way inside, down her throat, into the lining of her stomach. Ash is afraid, too—afraid of what her increasingly erratic wife will do to her. In a pandemic none of us are ready for, should we fear the outside world . . . or what’s waiting within?”

Overall rating 3 out of 5 stars.

My review…

I have such mixed feelings about this book, hence my review of 3 stars because I felt that was the middle ground for me.

The Fear is very befitting of the current times, as it centres around our two female protagonists living through a global pandemic and heavily features how these two gay women are harassed and as such one becomes mentally ill.

I thought the representation of these various aspects would be too much, but Hamilton wove them all together to create a novel so exceptionally different to anything I’d read before.

I loved Ash and Jack right from the start, and I feel this only helped develop the bond I had with them further as Jack becomes more and more deranged and paranoid, leaving Ash to decide between saving herself or her wife. This was so well done on Spencer’s part, I could feel the emotion pouring through the pages and there was a clear differentiation between Jack and Ash and how they were dealing with the pandemic.

You could feel Jack’s paranoia and Ash’s frustration in the writing.

Around 65% of the way through I felt that The Fear started to lose it’s way and began to drag, I struggled to keep up with the plot and I grew increasingly frustrated with how I just felt lost.

For me this really brought the rest of the book down, which is a damn shame.

The ending really spoiled this book for me, I know it’s survival instinct or survival of the fittest but it frustrated me so much that after everything we had been through we were lumped with that ending.

On the whole, the majority of this book was excellent, incredibly well written and provided a look into how our mental health can be impacted during the current pandemic. However, around 65% of the way through The Fear lost its way and I started to grow frustrated and confused.

Until next time, Em xxx

P.S. the cover of this book is just wicked! It looks amazing!