The Actor - Chris MacDonald - ★

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AUTHOR: Chris MacDonald
GENRE: Advertised - Psychological Thriller. Actual - Literary Suspense.
RATING: 1 star.

In a Nutshell: There’s a great story somewhere in here, but it is tough to locate the plot with all the flaws. This isn’t a thriller as advertised. Might work if you want a slow literary suspense.

Story Synopsis: (Too bored to write sensible sentences.)
Adam Sealey. Method actor. Obsessed with winning an Oscar. Blindly trusts controversial mentor Jonathan, who teaches him to tap into his greatest trauma, from back in drama school, to bring out the best performance of his career.
Someone accuses Jonathan of something. Investigations begin. Danger of Adam’s dark secret coming out. Will he get the Oscar? (For that’s all that matters, right?)
The story is written in Adam’s first person perspective.


What I thought this book would offer:
👉 A taut psychological thriller. (To all those who advertised it as a thriller: please DM me with YOUR definition of ‘thriller’.)

👉 A quick-paced storyline in keeping with the promise of a thriller.

👉 A lead character who is a method actor obsessed with winning the Oscar, and is ready to do anything for his craft.


What the book actually offered:
🚩 A detestable first-person narrator who is one of the most shallow and self-absorbed fictional characters I have ever read.

🚩 Mostly unlikeable characters (except for Nina) who generate no sympathy or understanding in our hearts.

🚩 A dragged pace that takes ages to move the plot ahead.

🚩 A back-and-forth storyline that shuffled between past and present with no indication of any timestamp and no chapter divisions as well; and

🚩 Pretentious writing that uses needlessly highbrow vocabulary (even when it doesn’t suit the characters.)


This was a slog-fest to read and generated a headache upon completion. The only reason I plodded through till the finish line instead of DNFing it is that I had already invested multiple days on this book and didn’t want those efforts to go to waste.

The only positive I can think of is the light it shines on the exploitation in method acting schools done in the name of training. I wish the current timeline had been scrapped and the book had focussed only on the acting school and the shenanigans within. It would have made for a far more compelling read.

Apologies to the team behind the book, but I cannot advocate this work in any way. If I were a better actor, I might have faked my way towards enthusiasm. But I am not as talented at acting as the lead character of the novel.

Please read other reviews before you take a final call. The book *might* work a tad better if read as a slowburn literary suspense than as a psychological thriller. Simply having some surprises and/or twists doesn’t make a book a thriller, and I wish it weren’t advertised as such.

My thanks to Penguin Random House, Michael Joseph, and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Actor”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

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