Link to book – Friend Request by Laura Marshall
Rating – 2 out of 5 stars
I was actually quite disappointed with my read of Friend Request, it was just okay. I expected a lot more from a book that was branded as a thriller, it just felt flat and lacked anything that really made it stand out from the crowd.
The atmosphere and intrigue of this book were just not what I expected given that it was supposedly a thriller… Sure, it felt tense and I definitely was leaning towards the edge of my seat but it never fully tipped the scales into that proper thrilling vibe. I also felt that whilst it was intriguing to start off with, it just became drawn out and tedious.
Moving onto the characters I found it really difficult to make my mind up about whether or not I liked Louise (who was our main character). I was bullied in school, quite badly, and I think that’s part of the reason I didn’t like her, I felt the author tried to make it as if she showed remorse but it felt false and like the author was trying too hard. Despite Louise also being a victim in the story I just found her hard to like and felt a lot of resentment towards her. However, there were points where I felt sorry for her and I did feel sometimes she was genuinely remorseful, only to have that undone by the author.
And coupled with average writing, that just lacked that little bit of oomph, it just didn’t make for a thrilling read.
I think though my biggest issue was the plot… At points it really felt like the author was reaching too much to connect dots that just weren’t meant to connect. I felt we were ripped off with the messages too, the whole idea and plot of the book was supposedly around these messages and the friend request but then it ended up just being a few pages about it before we moved onto another plot line, that to be honest, felt irrelevant to story so far.
It felt like the author had multiple ideas and tried to cram them into one story, pulling us from pillar to post with no direction of the actual plot. This also made me feel like there were a few plot holes, but I can’t really put my finger on these, it just was something that felt off.
On the whole, I was really disappointed by Friend Request, but I do believe if it hadn’t have been marketed as a thriller it would have been a much better book, but I had very high expectations of it and they just weren’t met.
Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 