Book Review: The Companion by Katie Alender

Title: The Companion
Author: Katie Alender
Genre: YA Suspense / Thriller
Publication Date: August 25th, 2020
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

“The other orphans say Margot is lucky. Lucky to survive the horrible accident that killed her family. Lucky to have her own room because she wakes up screaming every night.

And finally, lucky to be chosen by a prestigious family to live at their remote country estate.

But it wasn’t luck that made the Suttons rescue Margot from her bleak existence at the group home. Margot was hand-picked to be a companion to their silent, mysterious daughter, Agatha. At first, helping with Agatha – and getting to know her handsome older brother – seems much better than the group home. But soon, the isolated, gothic house begins playing tricks on Margot’s mind, making her question everything she believes about the Suttons… and herself.

Margot’s bad dreams may have stopped when she came to live with Agatha – but the real nightmare has just begun.” (Goodreads)

I have been quite curious about this one and my curiosity has been growing with all of the reviews I have seen lately. I decided to finally look on my library’s overdrive and it was available without having to put a hold so I figured why not.

There are definitely some positives about this book. The writing is really easy to get into from the beginning and the author does a great job of creating a gothic atmosphere. It’s a book that is hard to put down because I needed to know if my thoughts were right and what would happen next.

Here comes the negatives: the romance and obviousness of the plot.

I really wasn’t a fan of the romance. They start out not liking each other for reasons and then all of a sudden they are closer and kissing. It just didn’t make sense. I understand why the author put it in so that there could be a certain plot twist but it just didn’t work for me.

Even though the plot had me wanting to continuously read, I still felt like it was missing something. There just needed to be more to take me over the top. A lot of the plot twists were obvious from the beginning and it just felt like I wasn’t ever surprised when I should have been.

Overall, it was good but it still could have been better. I’m not mad that I read it and I can see why others have really enjoyed this book.

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