I’m behind where I want to be on book reviews for the back half of the year and I want to be caught up for the new year. So we’re going to post some reviews speed-dating style. If I have lots to say, I’ll go into more detail, but for some of the middle of the road reads for the year, I’ll keep my thoughts brief.
What it’s about:
I find this story pretty hard to describe, honestly. It’s a story with more layers than an onion with tidbits that get revealed as each layer is peeled back. Ted is a man who lives in a boarded up house on Needless Street. He may or may not have had involvement with a missing girl years prior, he has an unruly-seeming daughter that he hides from the world, and occasionally the story is told from the point of view of his cat. When the missing girl’s sister – now an adult – comes around trying to find out what actually happened to her missing sister, the security Ted finds in his peculiar life starts to come apart at the seams. Needless to say, Needless Street has a lot going on.
Why I decided to read it:
Honestly, this was one where I picked it up because of the hype train. I was hearing a lot about it in different articles on sites like Goodreads and BookRiot and some of my writerly friends had given it a read as well. Based on the synopsis, I feel confident that it would have made it onto my TBR list at some point anyway. Also, I was in a bit of a reading slump at the time, so interesting and well recommended felt like a good place to jump back into reading.
The Pros:
- Because of the unique voices in this story and the way it’s written, this was an intriguing book. There’s a lot of little details to get revealed as the story unfolds.
- It has a lot of neat elements of a thriller.
- I thought the narration style was really effective and, while the cat’s point of view took a bit of getting used to, I think it’s indicative of a strong writer. I’d read more by Catriona Ward.
The Cons:
- This book is marketed as a horror novel, but I’d argue it’s solidly a thriller and not going to be satisfying if you’re looking for a horror story.
- The story feels a bit unnecessarily slow at points, as though it’s using pacing to draw out the tension, but it doesn’t feel successful. I love a good slow burn, but at some points in this story, I found myself not looking forward to reading it because it was slogging along.
- As things begin to get revealed, I found the ending to be pretty predictable (which is fine, but it reads a bit like “And you never saw it coming!” even though it wasn’t hard to see from pretty early in the book) And combined with the slog at some points, it felt like the twists were a bit forced and supposed to feel more significant because they took so long to get there. (If that makes sense.)
Final Thoughts:
I think this one is worth a read. It’s an interesting take on the typical thriller in a unique way that I think is worth checking out. While I’d be hesitant to call it a flawless story, it’s well written and obviously well thought out. I think that it makes sense that it’s mentioned on reading lists – despite the marketing being a bit off genre. Furthermore, some of the writing styles/motifs it explores are done in an intriguing way. It’s not a five star read for me, but I feel like it’s pretty solidly a 4 star book.
