“They’re really such a great company to work for. We have so much fun.”
A job interview is one of those things everyone has to do at least once in their life, though few people actually ever enjoy it. Being put on a pedestal and going through the usual assortment of questions ranging from your career ambitions to personal hobbies? It can be a nerve-jangling affair. It’s this everyday affair Chris Ewan tackles in his thriller novel The Interview. Known for twisting ordinary situations into high-stakes, adrenaline-pumping reads, this book seemed to draw a bit more of a mixed reception from readers online. What did we think of it? Join us here at What We Reading for our The Interview book review to find out!
Date Published: 2022
Author: C.M. Ewan
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 448
Goodreads Rating: 3.5/5
Premise
Following a series of personal and professional losses, Kate Harding has been put forward for an interview with the swish and fancy PR agency, Edge Communications. Her recruiter, Maggie, has set up an interview at 5pm on a Friday at the company’s office in The Mirror, a state-of-the-art modern complex in central London. There, she meets her interviewer, Joel, before things go quickly awry.
Various flashbacks and a few chapters from other perspectives gradually reveal more and more layers to the story as this interview morphs into a gripping life-or-death situation.
What Worked
Off the bat, Ewan has undoubtedly tapped into a thrilling premise here. Taking something as mundane and ordinary as a job interview and gradually morphing it into something far more nerve-shredding hooked us in right from the start. We absolutely flew through the first half of the book or so.
The early interactions between Joel and Kate, where the pair are taking turns assessing each other’s responses and analysing their body language were really absorbing, and these sorts of forays into the psychological-thriller genre are where The Interview really shines, in our opinion.
Just by reading a handful of chapters, you can tell Ewan is an accomplished and experienced writer in this field. The pacing is incredibly fast-paced, but it never feels jarring or that things are being left behind without enough explanation. Generally, the revelations and twists are delivered at a good rate, and Ewan’s own unique style of writing feels right at home with such an intimate thriller like this.
Overall, we thought the characters all worked pretty well across the story. They’re all presented as being competent and intelligent, reminding us a lot of some of the characters from a book like Shiver or Breathless. What worked especially well was how Kate had to try several things before making any sort of breakthrough, such is the expertise Joel has in what he does.
Too often protagonists stumble upon the path forward through something their opponent really should have considered, so it was refreshing to see Kate really having to work her mind and body to get through the obstacles the book presented.
What Didn’t
Now that we’ve said that we liked most of the characters in The Interview, let’s go through exactly why we didn’t. Our main gripe is with Kate. If there is one thing more frustrating than having a protagonist who is absolutely flawless, it’s one that is presented as absolutely flawless, but who spends all their time trying to tell the reader they’re not.
Throughout the book, Kate is always saying, thinking and acting as the walking embodiment of morals, and yet is always banging on about how guilty she feels or how conflicted her actions are making her. It’s jarring and tiresome, which by the end made us feel quite tired of Kate as a character. It’s a shame because undoubtedly the potential to have a badass, nuanced and capable protagonist was right there.
Another jarring part of The Interview is how quickly it derails from an intimate psychological thriller into an all-out action movie. We’re happy suspending our disbelief, it’s fiction after all, but just how quickly all the delicious set-up is tossed out the window in favour of just another action-packed story of a giant corporation attempting to cover up some nefarious bottom-line driven conspiracy was such a waste.
Verdict
We saw a lot of reviews around saying The Interview was a book of missed potential. And whilst we do think Ewan was able to capitalise on his incredibly original premise, we can see where those criticisms come from.
The characters could have done with a little bit more expanding upon in terms of their personalities, goals, motivations and beliefs, and we would have loved the psychological aspects teased in the opening chapters to have been carried through as the action unfolded. We couldn’t really get behind the aero industry being the big player behind all the events at work, and some of the twists tossed in during the book’s concluding chapters didn’t quite hit the mark in the way we think the author wanted.
Ultimately, we found ourselves shrugging our shoulders more and more as we got closer to the end with a ‘sure, whatever’ expression on our face. Which is strange given how the action and revelations only ramp up the deeper in the Interview you get.
Ewan is a fantastic author, and he’s shown he is able to conjure up an action-packed thrilling read with a seriously engaging and original premise. If nothing else, The Interview has succeeded in making us want to pick up another one of his works and compare it to this. Had we been writing this book review after the first half of the book, it would have been an easy five stars, but unfortunately The Interview just loses a lot of what makes it so great the more it chugs along.
Our Rating: 3.5/5
Check out our The Chain Book Review for another great thriller read
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
