She Treads Softly: The Imaginary Friend

Sunday, November 2, 2025

The Imaginary Friend

The Imaginary Friend by Michelle Dunne
11/20/25; 344 pages
Boldwood Books

The Imaginary Friend by Michelle Dunne is a recommended psychological thriller.

After their foster mother at Raven s Rock died, Eve, 23, is left to take care of her sister Pennie,10. Eve is determined to protect and care for Pennie, but when Pennie mentions Angel, her imaginary friend, Eve is unsure how to proceed. As Pennie quotes to Eve things Angel is telling her it is clear that Angel knows facts about some recent murders that a 10 year-old imaginary friend shouldn't know.

The first half of the novel was very slow paced and repetitive. Clearly Eve is an unreliable narrator and is struggling with her mental health after experiencing some kind of trauma. What this trauma was is very predictable once the locked room was mentioned. It is also predictable what Eve has been doing, so waiting for the big reveal and twists that you know are coming while Eve keeps running through the same things in her head quickly becomes very tiresome. Yes, once the twists happen the pace picks up dramatically and the story becomes more compelling but also depressing.

Ultimately, this is an okay novel but it could have benefited from more editing to tighten up the plot. The Imaginary Friend is for readers who appreciate psychological thrillers with an unreliable narrator. Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.