The Blind
By A.F. Brady
3/5
()
About this ebook
With the intensity and rawness of Girl, Interrupted and Luckiest Girl Alive comes this razor–sharp debut, which reveals how one woman can go so far off the deep end, she might never make it back up.
Sam James has spent years carefully crafting her reputation as the best psychologist at Typhlos, Manhattan's most challenging psychiatric institution. She boasts the highest success rates with the most disturbed patients, believing if she can't save herself, she'll save someone else. It's this saviour complex that serves her well in helping patients battle their inner demons, though it leads Sam down some dark paths and opens her eyes to her own mental turmoil.
When Richard, a mysterious patient no other therapist wants to treat, is admitted to Typhlos, Sam is determined to unlock his secrets and his psyche. What she can't figure out is why does Richard appear to be so completely normal in a hospital filled with madness? And what, really, is he doing at the institution? As Sam gets pulled into Richard's twisted past, she can't help but analyse her own life, and what she discovers terrifies her. And so the mind games begin. But who is the saviour and who is the saved?
In this unexpected and addictive psychological debut, A.F. Brady takes readers into the psyche of a deeply disturbed woman desperately trying to keep her head above water, showing that sometimes what's most terrifying is what exists in your mind.
A.F. Brady
A.F. Brady is a New York State Licensed Mental Health Counselor/Psychotherapist. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Brown University and two Masters degrees in Psychological Counseling from Columbia University. She is a life-long New Yorker, and resides in Manhattan with her husband and their family. The Blind is her first novel.
Related to The Blind
Related ebooks
Fated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Next Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Broken Ones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Healed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lie of You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Silent Suspect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hanno's Doll Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Woman in the Woods Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Double: 'Completely engrossing' Katherine Webb Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll For You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBone Deep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Day of Emily Lindsey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Until I Find You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How You See Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Game for All the Family: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Other Twin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Cruise Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKiller at Dark Hollow Lake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glass Forest: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Such Dark Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Fiancés New Best Friend Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Exit Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Lullaby Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Only Truth: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5He Must Live To Tell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMiss Diagnosis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFind Her Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhile No One Was Looking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Surrogate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Night Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nigerwife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Blind
26 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"The Blind by A.F. Brady is a highly recommended debut novel of addictions, codependency, psychological self-examination and redemption." Samantha is a psychologist at a psychiatric institute in Manhattan, battling her own addictions and codependicies, yet works to help her patients battle the inner demons that she cannot.A mysterious patient, Richard, arrives and manages to get Sam as his doctor. There is a reason for this. But you won't know what it is until the last page. It's a fascinating read into Sam's psyche as she falls deeper into her own rabbit hole for a period covering five months. I really liked the book to the point where I couldn't put it down because it was very slow-paced and I was anxious to reach its conclusion. It was worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy unreliable narrator, Batman! A clinical psychologist at a New York mental institution battles her own demons as she treats her patients, one of whom is accompanied by a next-to-nothing paper trail and a penchant for being tight lipped about why he is there. Her personal life is a nightmare and she is losing her own grip on reality in a place where reality certainly does not abound. 4.5 stars for this debut novel which kept me guessing until the last five pages.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Liking - or at least spending time with - an unlikable main character was an ongoing problem for me with this book. Sam is one of those people I'd feel sympathy for from a distance but would avoid interacting with at all costs. She's flat-out mean and a total psychological mess. So 400+ pages of her first person narration grated on my nerves. I persevered because the author does an excellent job of showing us specific mental illnesses, and I wanted to believe Sam would evolve with some redeeming characteristics to alter my opinion of her. She didn't, though I suppose that's often the reality of life.The pace of this story is quite slow as we watch Sam spiral out of control. She drinks so much at night that she's still drunk when she goes to work in the morning. Most of the first two-thirds of the book is her descent into an alcoholic stupor. As for Richard, the mystery patient, nothing much happens with him until the last third of the book. He's silent, mostly, though he drops clear hints and certain things are glaringly obvious, at least to readers. Sam, the top psychologist at the hospital, is too drunk to notice and is oddly content to let him sit around in this hospital with essentially no treatment and no diagnosis. I had trouble buying into Richard's placement at the hospital. It seemed beyond strange to me that none of the doctors or administrative staff would know anything about his past or why he was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Even so, his character intrigued me enough to keep me reading.The last quarter of so of the story picks up and things finally start happening. Though I saw the twist coming, I was carried along, feeling the turmoil of emotions and the edge of suspense. Then, just when we get to what should have been an intense climax, the story abruptly ends. We not only don't see any aftermath, we don't even see how things play out in the moment. A short, one-page final chapter, which reads more like an epilogue, reveals the twist, in case we didn't figure out where the build-up had left us dangling in the previous chapter.I was exasperated by the non-ending. The lack of depth and insight into the heart of the entire story made me feel like I'd wasted my time with an unlikable character.*I received an advance copy from the publisher, via Amazon Vine, in exchange for my honest review.*
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A psychological mess. Psychologist, Dr. Samantha James appears to have it all together...but everything is not as it appears. As she comes to terms with the mess that is her life a stranger comes in and threaten her little sense of security.