We Used to Live Here
by Marcus Kliewer
Blurb:
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?
My Reaction:
This is yet another horror book I've seen highly recommended, so I thought I'd give it a try. So many other readers apparently found it terrifying and loved it, but for me it was just "okay". The premise is great, but once you start to figure out what's going on (well, figure it out as much as anyone can, given that there are no definite answers), I found it a little disappointing. That particular trope or style of horror has never been my favorite, and I can't reveal what it is without spoilers, so I'll leave it for now.
The frequency of "oh no, religion" had me rolling my eyes, and apart from a few genuinely scary moments, I just wasn't feeling the terror. Definitely not the scariest book I've ever read. I think this might be one of those stories that works better as a movie than a novel—though I did enjoy the idea of the documents and the "hidden messages" doled out through the book. (More about them in the spoilers section.)
All in all, I enjoyed this novel well enough, but I also don't think it's as amazing as many others evidently do. I simply have too many unanswered questions.
I struggle with rating this one, so I'm going straight down the middle of the road with 3 stars.
SPOILERS:
Okay, are the anti-spoilerites gone?
Good.
There are so many terrifying possibilities available, when the book starts with a family of strangers at the door—possibilities both paranormal in nature and completely within the realm of brutal reality. What I wasn't expecting was a tale of "the old gods" toying with and mentally torturing hapless humans for no apparent reason except possibly their entertainment. (Well, either that or Eve has lost her mind, and I don't think that's the conclusion we're supposed to settle on.)
I think the paranormal can be incredibly frightening, when done right, but Lovecraftian horror generally isn't as effective for me as it seems to be for many other readers. Maybe I just haven't found the right book, yet. Yes, there are moments of this book that are scary, and the uncertainty is unsettling—but nothing in here kept me up at night or made me hesitate to walk down the hallway at night without switching on the light (as has been known to happen on occasion, with other books).
Regarding the "hidden messages": Maybe it's not exactly a hidden message when it's in the form of Morse code clearly visible at the end of chapters and random capitalized letters, but I'm not sure how else to describe them. I missed the wingdings messages completely and only read about them in another review.
