BOOK Review: The Boyfriend

I just finished reading 'The Boyfriend' by Freida McFadden and gave it four out of five stars which is pretty high. I see various thoughts on this book some love it some don't, but for the people saying it's predictable and boring, I do not agree whatsoever and I don't think every story has to be so overthought. Not every story has to have the biggest twists and crazy things happening. Their stories and should be believable, at least for me.

I thought this book was a quick read with great characters I related to. Tom and Slug, are best friends since childhood along with Daisy and her best friend Alison. Tom is in love with Daisy and always was but Alison cannot stand Tom because she thinks he's off. It's interesting how Alison doesn't see the same offness in her best friend Daisy. Slug apparently is a very tall lanky dork of a kid with pimples on his face and Tom is kind of his only friend even though Tom is cute and everyone likes him. They became friends since very young. Slug has a crush on Alison but stands no chance and Tom tries his best to go around these talks of Slug wanting to get with Alison because he knows that will never happen.

Fast forward to when they're all adults, Sydney is a girl that is reaching mid 30's and feels hopeless she'll ever find a husband or partner to have babies with. Bad date after bad date after she broke up with her last cop boyfriend Jake makes her want to give up. She has two friends she hangs out with, one girl lives in her building Bonnie and the other Gretchen that is dating the handyman that lives in her building. They all go to yoga together and get coffee weekly.

Sydney goes on a date from the dating app and when the guy, Kevin, arrives he is nothing like his photo and has the worst personality and even makes her pay half the dinner bill. He insists on walking her home even though it's the last thing Sydney wants and when she tries to get rid of him mid walk he becomes very handsy and aggressive physically so she kicks him and she ends up hitting her head in the scuffle. A man comes and saves her telling Kevin to bug off. Sydney thinks this mystery man is gorgeous and after he helps her he leaves and she's sad she'll probably never see him again.

Kevin becomes a stalker of some sorts and it drives the reader crazy as to why Sydney doesn't do more to make sure he stops. After the date, she reported his account but he still ends up finding her on the street, sending her messages and even goes as far as setting up a meeting as a foe 'client' for her accounting practice and gets her on a zoom call. She brushes it off and never calls the police or looks further into it and I did not enjoy that.

One day she's supposed to meet her friend Bonnie at her apartment because their friend's boyfriend, Randy, is coming to fix the toilet but Bonnie thinks he's creepy so she asked Bonnie to be at the apartment while Randy is there. Bonnie won't answer the door so she pleads for Randy to let them in and they find her dead.

With the investigation on who could've killed Bonnie, including the possibility of a man she was seeing 'mystery hot doctor' that she was so excited about but never told anyone his name or any information about him, Sydney runs into her ex police boyfriend that is assigned the case.

Sydney is distraught and even wonders if crazy bad date Kevin could've done this because they ran into him on the street and Bonnie told him off for stalking Sydney. A few months later Sydney is on what she thinks is a great date but her nose starts to bleed, worse than most nose bleeds because she has a condition, and the guy faints and abandons her in the restaurant. When he fainted a doctor comes over to assist and it's the mystery hot guy that helped her the night Kevin attacked her. She finally found the mystery hot guy and they go to dinner. Previously, Sydney had the thought that this mystery guy could be the same guy Bonnie was dating because the incident happened a few blocks from her building and he could've left Bonnie that night because Bonnie did say she was just with Hot Doctor boyfriend. Sydney quickly dismisses this theory and says it's probably not the case even after seeing he is also a doctor. So basically Sydney is annoying at times not seeing things for what they are.

Sydney and Mystery Doctor end up dating and he told her his name is Tom Brown, later Sydney finds out he lied about his last name. She finds out other lies as well like he uses two phones and one for her solely. He won't meet her friends and gets really weird when he sees what building she lives in.

As the story unfolds, we go back and forth between timelines of when Tom, Slug, Daisy and Alison were kids and then today when Tom is an adult dating Sydney and Slug, Alison and supposedly Daisy is dead according to Tom but she really isn't. Tom tells Sydney the one love of his life is dead and that's why he has commitment issues. Ends up Slug seemed like the killer after Tom in self defense kills his father and Slug helped him bury the body and then it seemed like he also killed Alison when he thought Alison suspected them but it turns out Daisy was the one that killed not only Alison but also a girl named Brandi because she was jealous that Brandi kissed Tom. She killed Alison because Alison was going to rat out Tom and she also killed Slug because Slug knew Alison told her the suspicions of Tom and Slug before she died. He was also creeper looking into girls windows so Daisy justified it that way to Tom. At this point Tom knows she's insane and a killer and is heartbroken they could never be together now knowing this side of her.

Tom lives his life saying Daisy (which is really Gretchen today) died but she didn't and she now stalks him and ends up killing all the women Tom dates out of jealousy, including Bonnie, Sydney's friend. One day in Tom's apartment Sydney finds some evidence of this and realizes her earlier suspicions of Tom being the guy Bonnie was dating is true. She freaks out gets out of there and tells her ex boyfriend Jake the cop which ends up clearing Tom of the murder because he had an iron clad alibi.

At the end, Daisy aka 'Gretchen' was the real monster and killer and kills her boyfriend Randy the handyman and tries to kill Sydney saying she can't live without Tom she tried but can't. Tom in an effort to appease Daisy and save Sydney appeases her and says he'll leave with her if she spares Sydney's life and no one else dies, unless they deserve it. I was disappointed in this outcome. I wanted Tom to end up with Sydney but it seems he can't escape Daisy and actually truly feels for her deep down. Tom seems like a nice decent person with instrusive thoughts and the ability to kill only 'bad people' if absolutely needed. It made me sad to see Tom take this route instead of turning Daisy in but something deep down inside of him wanted to protect her as his first love and true love.

Sydney ends up back with her ex cop boyfriend Jake, which makes her mom elated. They never caught Tom or Daisy but Sydney comes home one day to an anonymous letter from Tom saying 'you don't have to worry about Kevin anymore'. So they killed Kevin? I guess Tom isn't as nice as I wanted to think even though Kevin was a creep. I have so many mixed feelings on Tom and I went through most of the book thinking Slug was the actual killer before and now in 'Randy'.

I really enjoyed this book and most of Freida McFadden's thrillers.

Happy Reading. You can also listen to my podcast review of the book here.

Salty Sunshine Podcast