I finally caved and read Freida McFadden’s latest book, The Tenant, which could have aptly been titled “The Tenant From Hell” because that’s what Blake Porter–Freida McFadden’s first male protagonist!– is up against in this new psychological thriller book. Let’s talk about it!

Desperate to pay his mortgage after being fired unjustly from his sleek job, Blake and his fiancée Christa decide to let out their spare room in NYC. Compared to all the eccentric prospective tenants who come to the visit, a young woman named Whitney seems like the most normal one… or is she? Soon after moving in, things start to spin out of control and Blake–perpetually tortured throughout the book– starts regretting his decision immediately. Mysterious and unpleasant events start occuring around the brownstone and Blake seriously starts to lose his grip. We’re talking endless fruit flies, dead pets, rashes from hell, you name it. The reader is left wondering not if but when he’s going to snap! 

Ok guys, I’ll be giving spoilers at the end of the review, but if you haven’t read The Tenant yet and you don’t want it all laid out, all I can say is pay close attention in this book. I read a lot of thrillers and I did not manage to figure out what was happening (lol looking back), but maybe the true detectives will figure it out! In typical Freida fashion, things might not be what they seem (muahahaha!) 

If you’re familiar with The Housemaid series–soon to be a movie, yay! The Tenant follows the same style of one character POV  in the first half, the other in the second (although I won’t tell you who is narrating the second half of The Tenant because it could allude to the twist(s) –some of which have breadcrumbs, others not really (a bone I will pick later on). 

Let’s talk about the format I read this book in: I  listened to The Tenant as an audiobook while walking my pup. If you use audiobooks, I highly recommend this format–the only format I use to read Freida McFadden actually. The plot is catchy easy to follow, great pacing (and narration by Will Damron) that really emphasizes the characters and how dramatic and reactive they are in this book. It made it easier for me to stay engaged in the story, whereas reading it as a physical book might have been boring for me since I tend to need more interesting prose to get lost in. This is my third Freida book after the first two Housemaid books (narration by Lauryn Allman).

Let’s talk about what’s unique about The Tenant: this is Freida McFadden’s first time writing a male protagonist! 

My audiobook didn’t include her afterward where apparently she talks about the challenging process of developing a male character, talking to her husband about ‘oh would a guy say this?’ You can definitely feel that play out in the book, which is where it felt pretty comedic. Some people have loved this, others seem to hate it. I found it entertaining but with lots of eye rolls because Blake is such a tool. I felt like I was following a caveman around. You’ll be rolling your eyes, or getting an eye twitch every time he calls women crazy and then checks them out. He also loves to play the victim, assume he’s right about everything and all the women of New York should listen to him! 

Blake’s jerky depiction did add a comedic layer for me but what I’m wondering is if Freida McFadden really imagines men thinking this way. Did she not know how to write a guy? Was it satire? Or did she mean to make him look suspicious and unreliable as a character? Either way, it made him a semi interesting person to follow. 

The female characters on the other hand were kind of a drag. It seemed like all Christa did was flounce around and bake cookies. I didn’t count, but they must have talked about cookies about 100 times. Christa and Whitney didn’t have a lot of substance to me and they felt pretty flat and one dimensional as characters. I wasn’t able to pick up on any suspicious behavior because I thought they were just undeveloped.

I’m still craving those cookies though… snickerdoodles, stat!

Other things that kept this book from being a five-star read for me:

• Lots of wild, implausible stuff that kind of ruins the story if you think about how it could never happen..
• I had a good time, but felt stupid that it took me almost until the twist was revealed to guess it, and then I could kind of see where the rest of the story was headed. I didn’t guess every little thing that gets revealed, but then again not all of those twists were necessary.
• my favorite ridiculous line: “he looked at me like i said the moon was made out of green cheese and i was melting it onto a sandwich”

Ready to cover The Tenant spoilers? 

Spoiler time! What happens at the end of The Tenant?

In the second half of The Tenant, we discover that Christa, Blake’s fiancee, is the villain of the story! Christa is seeking revenge against both Blake (for cheating on her with a coworker) and Whitney, who has actually stolen her identity! So Christa’s real name is Whitney and the tenant’s real name is Amanda. Amanda is claims to be using Whitney’s identity because it was “available” after Whitney went underground as Christa back when she was suspected of killing her high school boyfriend after he cheated on her. The girl is a total psychopath.

Amanda claimed to need a fake name after she took out a shady loan from a mobster in order to pay for her sick mother’s cancer treatment. The truth is (which we get at the very very end of the book) that Amanda is also a shady liar who just took out loans for gambling deaths.

Let’s get back to the climax of the story. Psycho Christa (real Whitney) tries to kill everyone in the house (after she also murdered the old man across the street and framed Blake). But before she can kill Blake (first with poisoned cookies, then with a knife) Amanda stabs her to death (after also getting stabbed first). This also fulfils the original prophecy by Quilizabeth that ‘Christa’ would die from being stabbed in the living room!

The book ends with Blake and Amanda surviving and actually getting together briefly themselves before Blake ultimately decides to move back to his hometown and take over his father’s hardware shop.

What did you think of this book? Be sure to follow my BookTube channel where I post regular thriller book reviews.

Thanks for reading this review! I would love to know what you think of The Tenant, especially on how Freida wrote this male character!