The Companion

By: Katie Alender

Narrated by: Taylor Meskimen

Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Edgar Award for Young Adult Fiction!

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 handpicked to be a companion to their silent, mysterious daughter, Agatha. At first, helping with Agatha - and getting to know her handsome younger brother - seems much better than the group home. But soon, the isolated 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.

©2020 Katie Alender (P)2020 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"Margot’s narration feels intimate, especially when she reflects on her potent grief, and Agatha is never used as a prop: She and Margot develop a silent communication that transcends speech. The palpable and steadily building sense of dread throughout is enhanced by a whisper of the supernatural. A pitch-perfect contemporary gothic.” (Kirkus Reviews)

"The suspense and chills are there, and the plot advances the story to a dramatic conclusion that, even if readers can see it coming, is still startling. This book hits all the notes of a solid thriller - creepy mansion, dark family secrets, a little romance, and a plucky heroine. Fans of suspense will enjoy this outing. Alender creates another tingly tale just right for escaping into this summer.” (School Library Journal)

Loved it!

I loved the way it was narrated! I had ideas of how it was going to end up but I was wrong! Kept me on my toes the whole time!

Creepy good

If ever a book NEEDED to be made into a movie, it’s THE COMPANION. A recently orphaned Margot arrives at Copeland Hall, a country family estate/mansion with a dark history and locked wings. Her job is to be a companion to Laura Copeland’s daughter Agatha, a newly catatonic teen. Laura seems nice, key word being seems. Agatha seems to be more aware of her surroundings than her mother admits. But nothing is as it seems, maybe not even Margot.

Creepily atmospheric, THE COMPANION prickled the my neck hair and gave me goosebumps. Margot wasn’t a dumb victim. While I wanted to tell her not to trust Laura, she didn’t do the stupid things teens in horror movies make viewers scream. Smart and resourceful, her Achilles’ Heel, wanting to trust and be loved didn’t make her lose all logic. I loved that she had enough in her hurting heart to care deeply for Agatha.

Katie Alender dots all her Is and crosses all her Ts, so I always understood why characters were acting in certain ways, if not immediately then eventually, though not in a way that feels too neat.

THE COMPANION is a masterclass in how to write the perfect thriller/horror story.

Great Story...but

The overall story was great. It would have 5 stars if not for the, painful to get through, romance parts. Another review said it should have been classified as a youth novel, and that's probably accurate.

Meh

I kept waiting for it to get good and it just never really did. It was just a meh book

Oh MY GOD!!

OK! THIS STORY HAD ME FLIPPING BACK AND FORTH EVERY CHAPTER! IT'S GHOSTS! NO DEMONS! NO SHE IS A WITCH! OH NO THE GIRL IS POSSESSED! OH MY GOD SHE IS FAKING! HOLY SHIT SHE IS POSSESSED AF!!!! AND HER MAMA IS TOO!!!! wait... wtf... ohhhhh SHIIIIITTTTT!!! RUN BABY!! FUCKING GREAT BOOK!

says headline is optional..but it's not

would have been 5 stars but I hated the Barrett storyline - it was unnecessary

Loved it

another great book by Katie Alender :) I can't wait until she writes another one :)

Eerily creepy and brilliantly smart

Ⓐⓤⓓⓘⓞⓑⓞⓞⓚ Ⓡⓔⓥⓘⓔⓦ

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖔𝖓
𝕭𝖞: 𝒦𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑒 𝒜𝓁𝑒𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇
𝕲𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: 𝒴𝒜, 𝑀𝓎𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓎, 𝒯𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓇, 𝒢𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝒸
𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖍𝖊𝖗: @puntnambooks
𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖍𝖊𝖉 𝕯𝖆𝖙𝖊: 𝒜𝓊𝑔. 𝟤𝟧𝓉𝒽 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟢
@goodreads 𝕾𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖊: 3.84
𝕸𝖞 𝕾𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖊: 🧒🧒🧒🧒 / 𝟦 𝒪𝓇𝓅𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓈

{ @goodreads blurb}

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.

{ 𝕸𝖞 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘}

A very eerily creepy novel and creatively written. I found the story at times a little slow. There were certain things in the story that I knew without a doubt and it seemed to take our protagonist forever to reach those very same thoughts. I found her a little dim witted in that aspect. Other than that, our protagonist was a very interesting character and so were the Sutton family.

The Sutton family history was very intriguing and found the wife Laura quite alluring. One thing that did bother me was the husband and the end of our story, he was no longer around. I was beginning to think he was dead and even though we are assured he is working in town; he never returns in the story even in the epilogue. I found that to be odd. Overall, I thought this dark gothic novel to be quite creative and creepily crazy.

" I let my hand rest on the banister, and as I did, I wondered how many people before had touched the gleaming polished surface as they went up or down these stairs. How many of them had been important or famous? How many of them had secrets? How many had tragedies in their pasts–or futures? An unpleasant tingle spiraled down my spine as I imagined the stairs crowded with the ghosts of all these people. Because if there were such things as ghosts, wasn’t this where they would be–stuck in the space between spaces?" ─ 𝒦𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑒 𝒜𝓁𝑒𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇, 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖔𝖓

predictable

All in all a good story, but very predictable.
the narration was excellent, and it was a pleasure to listen to.

Interesting

Narrator was tolerable. The story was engaging and then super of had gaps towards the end. It was ok.