Review: The Wrong Daughter by Dandy Smith

Introduction: A Psychological Thriller to Compete With

Thus, The Wrong Daughter by Dandy Smith is a convincing psychological thriller exploring family bonds and identity, and awareness of people’s evil potentialities. Revolving around a small claustrophobic community, this novel encompasses deceitfulness, concealing, and betrayal, which makes it interesting and engaging to the audience. This book is superior in the given genre because of how well it describes tense situations and features complex protagonists, as seen by Smith. The Wrong Daughter starts with a bang and keeps the suspense factor alive till the last page making the reader always wrangle with possibilities and suspense about other individuals.

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Plot Overview: You, the viewer, must also get lost in the twists, turns, and endings that are now being revealed to the characters.

Lily Howard, who was assumed to have died in an accident twenty years before the beginning of the novel, returns in this one. Back in life she strongly surprises her small-town inhabitants and makes people wonder what occurred the day she disappeared. Eleanor, Lily’s mother is happy upon her return but Mia, Lily’s younger sister has a look of suspicion. Mia has never come to terms with her sister’s disappearance and it is too early and quite suspicious that Lily is back. Is she as innocent as she claims or there is something else behind the scenario that she presents?

However, as the family struggles to accept that Lily has come back, some occurrences make the audience think the movie is an Indian session. Old bitterness tends to resurface and the skeletons that were buried with the assumption of the death of Lily begins to emerge. Mia is an investigative journalist who gets consumed with finding out the whole truth about her sister’s death which leads her astray. Her investigation disproves much of what Lily had said and proceeds to create a series of events that threaten the structure of the Howard family.

When Mia starts investigating her sister’s life, she realizes that everything her sister said was a lie, starting from childhood. She starts to think that Lily’s homecoming is planned and includes her close friend concealing an evil deed. As the stakes go high, Mia has to deal with a world of lies and betrayal and her own internal emotions of guilt, envy, and the tragedy of having a sister.

Things become murkier when Mia is pursued and she does not know who is friend or foe including her family members. There is tension throughout the novel which makes the climax as stunning, the secrets are revealed, and Mia has to accept the bitter truth about her sister and who she is.

Character Development: As complicated and imperfect as it is, this movie has caught my interest and I encourage readers to do the same.

Dandy Smith unlike other writers and filmmakers is good at portraying complicated and diverse characters that the audiences can relate with. Mia Howard is the main working subject and she is depicted as a rather complex female hero, who has her strengths and weaknesses. The love towards her sister, jealousy, and guilt that remained unresolved make her obsessed with the search for the truth. The portrayal of Mia’s confused and stressed state, as well as herself as a character, is made very realistic, making her one of the most believable characters in the story. Once again Smith does a good job of presenting the two sides of Mia and how she goes from fearing the unknown to needing answers.

Lily who is the main character of the mystery is as mysterious as the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. She is back suddenly and her actions are quite cryptic to manage to set an atmosphere of suspense and mystery. Is the woman someone’s sister who has been missing for so long, or is she an incognito person who has other motives? Smith does a good job of making Lily out to be both endearing, and questionable, and readers must try to determine if she is a hero or an anti-hero for the duration of the novel. The relationship with other characters, especially the ones with Mia and Eleanor, only enriches the notion and makes the plot much more thrilling.

The other characters are also useful in developing the stories’ themes and providing a richer context for the events. The character of Eleanor Howard who is the mother we see desperately searching for her lost daughter and still holding on to hope that she is alive has also been depicted with some measure of realism. Her desire to deny reality and to believe in Lily’s return is both sweet and pathetic; her strained relationship with Mia brings another conflict into the family picture. The supporting characters and antagonists also add a lot of depth to the story: Mia’s father, who left her when she was a baby, the townspeople, all those people who inhabit St. Antonio and are somehow connected to Mia.

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Themes: Identity, family, and the nature of truth: How alternative therapies can teach young persons about identity and the importance of family.

Another significant idea we can trace in The Wrong Daughter is the very idea of ‘identity’. The novel shows whether it is possible to change the identity, and how other people can influence it and either support or threaten it. Lily’s appearance raises more questions as to who the real Lily is and whether the girl that everyone admires is an original Lily or one created by her circumstances. This aspect also puts into consideration of how the identities of individuals can be shaped by their families and the experiences they undergo as well as secrecies. It is a journey to the truth, as well as the journey of the protagonists’ search for personal identity, or at least the reflection of their status.

The idea of with regards to reality and illusions is also one of the topics that are present in the book. What Smith succeeds in doing is posing readers a problem as to what they are to believe in: appearances and narratives. The idea of ‘truth’ is represented as something that is relative and appears to be conditioned by a view, a bias, or an agenda. While reading the novel also the readers can judge whether the objective reality exists at all or all the characters are simply liars and products of their illusions.

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Narrative Style: Though, it can be also said that the movie is suspenseful, engaging, and very atmospheric.

The Structuring of the Narratives The method that Dandy Smith used to present the story is very effective in creating suspense and attracting the attention of the readers. The structure of the novel is in small sections of thirty-five to fifty pages, each section containing large events, and large dramatic moments, and many of them will end with a climax to create tension and intrigue and make the reader unable to put the novel down. This makes it easier for readers to follow the action that is happening in the story and makes them wonder what the real intentions of the characters are since Smith describes the events from various viewpoints.

Smith does an excellent job describing the strong tense feeling that pervades the written material in the Howard family as well as the claustrophobic environment of living in a small town. Fictional space itself gains the role of a protagonist; its features are a rather desolate, suburban atmosphere, numerous woods, darkness, and people around who seem to follow the protagonist, turning the show into a detective-like mystery. The image of the town that the author paints is colored with paranoia and mistrust, which is why every secret and every piece of gossip contributes to the overall atmosphere of the book.

The conversation in the novel is witty and realistic; this makes it possible to understand the changes in the character’s emotions and personalities at the same time. It changes the facial expressions of the characters involved and the body language between two people and it makes the characters more round and turns the reader into a spectator of the characters’ destiny.

Strengths: The Novel has an incredibly strong plot, its characters are nuanced details and multiple tricky turns.

The plot may well be The ‘Wrong’ Daughter’s crowning virtue. I found Smith smart in developing a plot with plenty of twists and turns that are engaging to the reader to the last episode. It takes time to build tension and there is no moment rushed, through the novel. For example, Smith is very successful in the construction of suspense for the readers through their systematic inclusion of clues and false leads.

The characters in the novel are very well developed and this can be considered one more advantage of the book. I believe that about the characterization Smith has done a good job in waving real and compelling imperfect characters. Most of the interpersonal conflicts that are characteristic of the movie are interesting and realistic, whereas Mia’s internal conflict, Lily’s vagueness, and Eleanor’s eagerness are portrayed vividly. Because the characters’ interactions are complex and changing, the love story brings depth to the narrative and makes the fantastic aspects of the plot believable.

Smith’s treatment of the storyline with aspects of psychological concerns like identity crisis, trauma, and truth, makes the work not simply a thriller but a deep one. Indeed the theme of psychological trauma and pain or loss in the novel is captured and portrayed well thought out and helped to provoke some serious thinking while being touched emotionally.

Weaknesses: It’s not entirely unpredictable and there are a few speed bumps now and then.

Despite that, The Wrong Daughter is one of the most entertaining and well-written novels, and it does have some flaws. We can therefore expect that some viewers may find some of the events predictable – especially since the material is in the genre of a psychological thriller. For instance, the plot where one loses a family member only for him or her to come back into their life under odd circumstances is often used in thrillers and some of the twist may appear mundane.

Moreover, the pacing of the story is also done well but explodes sometime in the middle when Mia’s investigation falters down or gets in a twist. It does pause the action now and then which is somewhat jarring and will certainly not help set the record of a true thriller where the action never stops as some might expect. But these are few and far between and soon the narrative moves away into far more exciting territory – the final act being good and to the point.

Conclusion: A Book That Everybody Wants To Read, A Psychological Thriller with Action, and suspense, And Is Full Of Substance & Substance.

There is so much to digest in this book, The Wrong Daughter by Dandy Smith is a masterful work of psychological thriller that is intense and heartfelt both at the same time. It is one of the best thrillers because of the numerous and developed characters, the twists and turns, and deep themes. Due to such good characterization, distinctive descriptions, and the ability to build tension and suspense when explaining the family’s nature and relationships, this novel by Smith is one of the most engaging books that can be read from the cover to the last page.

As I have noted, the novel has some of the shortcomings inherent in the genre and concerns incipient pacing problems; but they are relatively minor and do not mar the experience of reading the novel. The Wrong Daughter is quite captivating and readers interested in psychological thrillers, and mystery, as well as the stories representing the family drama genre, will find the book quite interesting to read. It is a book that leaves one with certain critical thinking up to the very last page, it presents the readers with issues that are dark within the human soul.

To anyone who is seeking to read a good psychological suspense novel with an entailing storyline, The Wrong Daughter is a good and interesting read. The plot of the story has been well-developed by Dandy Smith.

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