Book Review: What’s Wrong with Valerie?

Title: What’s Wrong with Valerie?

Author: D.A. Fowler

Narrator: Heather Murdock

Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Whats-Wrong-with-Valerie-Audiobook/B07X4HM74P

Summary

Valerie is only as sick as her secrets…

After the death of her hated grandmother, Valerie is, for the first time in her life, really free. The house belongs to her. She should be happy. But Valerie isn’t quite normal.

She’s taking in roommates to make ends meet, but, one by one, they keep ending up dead. Her young niece is crying out for a special kind of discipline that only she can provide. And there are the voices she hears…voices that want her to do terrible things.

Valerie is only trying to survive. If she stops doing what the voices tell her, something grotesquely evil will devour her soul….

What’s wrong with Valerie?

“One of the best horror debuts I’ve come across in a long time…” (Douglas Clegg, author of Neverland)

My Review

4/5 Stars

Turns out Valerie has a lot wrong with her. Schizophrenia has her seeing and believing things that aren’t there. This audiobook is a trip inside her mind, an insight into the struggles of the demons that she faces both inside herself and out in the world that she must still traverse inside. For Valerie, the demons that she sees are all charming in their own way, and it’s that which makes it harder for her to get rid of them.

This story has plenty of twists and turns. With a narrator like Valerie, that’s not a surprise. It was interesting to see the contrast of things that were actually happening in comparison to what Valerie believed. It made me think that there are mental illnesses that really affect people in such a manner like this.

Overall, the story leaves an uneasy feeling from the disconnect. Very well done.

The narrator gave an interesting excitement to Valerie’s character to balance the downward spiral of her life. It was an interesting contrast, and I liked the little background noises the narrator added as well.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.