A Warning Against Reading The Warning by A J Wills

The Warning; the title gives you a momentary shudder. Is it sinister or the anticipation? Instant imagery of a spooky thriller to keep you on the edge of your seat forms in your mind.

Well my dear readers, that's not what this book is at all - I'm sure it's what A J Wills aimed for, but completely missed the mark with me I'm afraid! Allow me to explain why...

The Main Plot:

After losing everything in a fire that destroyed their home, Megan clings to the one thing she has left – her husband, Justin.

He’s been her rock through their tragedy, so when he suggests moving to his family’s old holiday home in the country, Megan doesn’t protest, even though its crooked chimneys and dark foreboding walls leave her feeling anxious and afraid.

She’s determined to make the most of it, but she’s barely settled in when she discovers an old mobile phone hidden in the loft and her world is turned upside down again.

A chilling text message carries a warning she can’t ignore.

Whatever you do, don’t trust your husband.

The Pros and Cons: (Spoiler Alert!)

➕ I loved the premise of this book, it had so much potential; a wife finding out her husband is dangerous from an anonymous source? What makes him dangerous? What's he done? By her account, he's a loving and thoughtful sweetheart. I buckled in and was so there for it. There was so many ways A J Wills could've taken this, but...

➖ Unfortunately the angle of the plot changed completely when I realised the protagonist was just... Stupid. Megan was a one-dimensional character that was being abused emotionally and mentally by her husband for twelve years and never once felt weird about it? She never once questioned it? It wasn't realistic at all, and that's coming from someone who's been in multiple abusive relationships. Sorry, but this just wasn't believable and doesn't fit into how abusive relationships work - your husband doesn't lock their wife in their house, take away their phone, rape them and then attempt murder out of nowhere. He literally slept with a protitute and when she got him to admit it, he rationalised it and then proposed to her with no ring in the same breath... And she accepted. I know the bar is low these days in dating but come on.

➕ The mystery of the phone and who was sending her these texts was definitely a win. I loved it. I even wrote down a list of all the characters and why\how they might be the person responsible. My guess was way off! 

➖ When Megan finally has this revelation that Justin is indeed abusive, the author makes this realisation sound like Megan has just cracked the fourth dimension but this further shows off the weakness of the character and flimsy idea of not noticing abuse until it becomes attempted murder. It's like her character doesn't reflect on anything, ever. Unless you had the IQ of two planks of wood, you would've noticed ages ago. 

➖ I don't want all my cons to be laying into Megan's character, but when anyone tells you to get into the boot of their car and takes your phone from you, that's a red flag. It was a downright stupid thing for the character to be so naive and just get into the boot and give up her phone without a second thought. She's a grown-ass woman for goodness sake. Just a terrible plot point to try and lead up to the big twist; there must have been another way to get there.

➖ I think the author aimed for there to be three main plot twists: Justin turning out to be a bad guy, Harriet being a best-friend turned bad guy and the real fire-starter being Justin. Two of three were not executed properly; I only really got shocked from Harriet turning out to be a nutjob. Her character hid it well and I'll admit it was a pretty creepy twist.

➖ There are so many cons to list but honestly we'd be here all day, so my biggest gripe with this book was about 80% of the way in and it was where Megan sees Harriet to be dangerous and she suddenly starts making all these excuses for Justin in her head. She laments for ever leaving him, that he wasn't really being abusive and that even if he was, he'd just lost his children and work was stressing him out so it was excusable. This is the most irresponsible message I've read in the last five years of my life! Of course, Megan goes on to leave Justin after she figures out her set the fire that killed their children and blamed it on her, but that should absolutely not be the line a man has to cross in order for a grown woman to leave him. You know what that tells young women reading this? That abuse of them is okay but killing their kids isn't. 

I'm going to give this a 2 out of ten because I only found few writing errors and I guess it is technically a fully-written book.

⭐⭐

The badly written characters, various and plentiful plot holes and terrible overall message will me to warn you from reading The Warning. If you do go on to read it anyway, don't say I didn't warn you! 

I feel like Simon Cowell, reviewing this book with not much good to say about it. I swear I do try to look at the good in everything but there's just not a lot of good between these pages! Hopefully I'll have better luck with my next review which will be of His Wife's Sister by A J Wills. Oh yeah, we're giving this dude another chance. Let's hope his next book is a winner.

Let me know if you've read The Warning and what you thought of it! Haven't read it yet? Count yourself lucky - in the meantime, come join me on Instagram @south_african_hippie for extra content!

Love and Light,

Melissa x