I recently read two books in less than a week – Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman and Never Lie by Freida McFadden. Spoiler alert: it is shocking to me that Never Lie has a 4.09 rating on Goodreads while Incidents has a 3.85 rating. Incidents is told from the point of view of Bela, a young child (4? 5?) and her encounters with ‘Other Mommy’ – a being that haunts her closet and asks to enter her heart. It’s a gripping read and a page turner. The story follows Bela and her parents and their attempts to escape from the haunting. Never Lie is about a psychiatrist that goes missing (presumably murdered by her boyfriend) and the huge house she leaves behind. A young couple get stranded at the house when going for a viewing to possibly buy the home. The story switches from ‘past’ and ‘present’ and the timelines converge about 2/3rds of the way through.
Incidents is the triumph amongst the two. Though it can be seen as an ‘easy way out’, writing from a child’s perspective – the author doesn’t need to use an extensive vocabulary, nor does he need to express complex concepts – it is a good tactic to keep the attention of today’s busy readers. Malerman is a prolific author (he wrote the novel Bird Box that became the hit Netflix show) and his strong command of writing is evident in Incidents. He gives just enough detail in the book to allow the reader to fill in the blanks. I’m sure my image of Bela’s room is vastly different from others; however, his foundation allowed me to visualize her room, the house, the lake, everything clearly.
Also, Incidents is scary (note: I do scare easily). I can just see this story being made into a movie or series and how they will add in the visual and sound effects to terrify the audience. shivers I can still see Other Mommy in my mind, and it is unsettling.
I had such high hopes for Never Lie. Psychiatrist? Yes. Gone missing/possibly murdered? Yes. A creepy, potentially haunted house? Yes! The story? Sadly, no. There is a twist in the book, as expected, however the twist does not connect coherently with the entire book we read up until that point. If you have read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, then you would have seen how the plot twist made sense once it was revealed. You can go back to the beginning chapters of the book and say to yourself “Oh! This was this person!” That’s not the case with Never Lie – once the twist is revealed, the reader is simply left confused. Additionally, there were obvious attempts at making a character a red herring, someone who the reader first assumes will be involved in the plot twist. But those red herring hints have no relevance to the actual story and seem to have simply been included to fool the reader. And lastly, I could not get past the author’s use of the phrase, more than once, “I’m not going to lie” – even if it is a tie-in to the title, it did not come off as seamlessly genuine. So, dear reader, spend a day or two reading Incidents Around the House, and wait for the Hulu adaptation of Never Lie.
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