Incidents Around the House
by Josh Malerman
Blurb:
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.But Other Mommy needs an answer.
My Reaction:
I guess I'm just an extremely picky reader. Either that or I'm bad at selecting books—because it feels like it's nearly impossible to find a book that satisfies me, these days. This is another one that was recommended by a horror booktuber. After reading a couple of duds (or at least not roaring successes) suggested in her videos, I was skeptical of this one, from the start. However, the beginning was actually intriguing, so I thought maybe I'd finally found one that I could agree was a good read.
Alright, I wasn't crazy about the choice to leave out quotation marks. I get that it's told from a child's perspective, but... so? Why does that mean you don't need quotation marks? Especially given that all the other punctuation is there. Seems like laziness or a misguided attempt to be fresh and different. But as I say, I got past that and was hopeful. But then... It just got worse and worse. By the end, I was very disappointed. In between some genuinely creepy moments, it was a combination of the boring, the annoying, and the outright ridiculous—with a little confusion thrown in to make it even more irritating to read. I would not recommend this to anyone I know.
Now I see that they're making a movie adaptation of this book. Maybe they can improve upon it, or maybe it's better suited for the screen. If I get the chance to see it streaming, I'll probably give it a try, but I wouldn't go to see it in a theater—not based on this reading experience.
I don't even feel like putting in the effort to list the reasons this book annoyed me. Just read some other negative reviews; they probably cover most of it.
Well, it may have been an underwhelming conclusion, but at least I no longer have to read more obnoxious psychobabble crap from "Mommy", "Daddo" (ow, another strain from extreme eye-rolling), Bela's grandmother, and every other adult in the book. Phew!
