Incidents Around the House Book Review
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. Today, I am back with another book review. This has been on my TBR ever since it first came out, so when I saw it at the bookstore in paperback, I knew it was time to crack this one open. Let’s get into it!
Incidents Around the House is told from the perspective of 8-year-old Bella. Bella is being haunted by a spirit she calls, Other Mommy. Other Mommy wants to go into Bella’s heart, but Bella keeps telling her no. Eventually, Other Mommy gets tired of asking and weird things start happening around the house. Weird enough that Bella’s parents start to notice. Now the family needs to take matters into their own hands.
Now I have to be upfront because I had really high hopes for this book. I’m not a regular in the horror genre. I feel like it’s really hit or miss for me. But the author, Josh Malerman wrote Bird Box. Although I haven’t read this, I did see the movie and really liked it. However, I felt really let down by this book.
The beginning of this book was so good, but the middle of this book was so boring. The incidents performed by Other Mommy were so boring and the freaked-out family moving from house to house just I don’t know it didn’t do it for me. It was really hard to stay focused and interested. I
t wasn’t a look book either, maybe a little over 300 pages. The chapters were also very short, so it did feel like I was able to move through it pretty quickly. It was just really hard to keep reading though.
I do have to say, it was really cool that it was written in Bella’s perspective. I liked seeing things from a child’s perspective also with the things going on with her parents. I won’t give any spoilers, but I did find that to be really interesting.
It was also interesting to read through Bella’s fear and her internal struggle regarding whether she should just say yes to Other Mommy or not. Bella struggles with wanting to keep her family safe vs. well where would she go if she lets Other Mommy into her heart? I think that was the most interesting part of the book, aside from the ending. The parents, though, would give weird monologues when they thought their daughter was sleeping. As in, they both confess to different things and say things they shouldn’t to a child. Specifically, the mom. I just thought it was really odd and a weird way to expose the parents’ struggles. Kids are very intuitive and while Bella didn’t know exactly what was going on with her parents, she knew enough to know that something between them was wrong.
Okay, small spoiler, but one of my favorite lines is when Bella says to her mom, “You smell like someone else.”
Bella knew enough that her mom didn’t smell like home or like her dad, something completely different AND that it was most likely someone else’s scent/cologne. It was alarming to her. I just loved that little detail and the childlike way she said that. We, as the readers, obviously know what that means, and while Bella knows there’s something wrong, she might not entirely know the reason why her mom smells different. And that makes me wonder, if Bella noticed it, did the father notice it too and just not say anything? Did he know more than he let on?
The last 5-10 pages did make up for the boring parts of the book. Like I said, I won’t give any spoilers, but it was heartbreaking to say the least. Overall, I gave this 3/5 stars. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, and unfortunately, I don’t think I would recommend it.
Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post. As always, thank you for reading :)