The Caretaker Book Review
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today, I am back with another book review. If you know me, you know I’ve been getting into the horror genre, and that I absolutely loved We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer. I was over the moon hearing about his next release, The Caretaker. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, so let’s get into it!
The Caretaker follows Macy Mullins as she’s trying to find a job to be able to take care of herself and her sister. With their father’s recent passing, life has been tougher than usual. Macy finds a caretaker needed ad on craigslist. The details are vague, but the gig pays well and seems simple enough—follow the rites and nothing bad will happen. Failure to follow the rites…and there will be consequences.
When I say this book was phenomenal, I seriously mean it. Fans of the movie Oculus will love this. The slow building tension is what really sets this book up for success. There is this eerie tone kept throughout the book especially when the prologue gives us a taste of what happens when the rules are not followed. The entire time you’re reading, you are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It’s a fast read too, just over 300 pages. Which means that tension and eeriness are kept throughout the whole book.
As I said previously, I’ve been a huge fan of Marcus Kliwer ever since I read We Used to Live Here. The old, haunted house trope is something Kliewer does so well. I honestly can’t wait for his next book already. I hope we get more of the red universe. There are a ton of places and people Kliewer can expand upon. One of the main things being the characters from the phone.
Throughout the novel, Macy gets a few calls from people who give her very specific instructions that she has to follow. Even if they counter the original rules. We don’t know much about the folks on the phone. Are they ghosts, are they also trapped in some evil universe, are they like Grace and just trying to follow the rules to get by? We don’t know.
Macy Mullins is also a very interesting female main character. She’s presented as a “final girl” type but more so rooted in grief, exhaustion and anxiety than heroism. She has a very confident and cynical outer voice, but her inner voice is timid and anxious which really shows her loneliness.
She’s also a conduit for showing OCD-like compulsions. Her obsessive thinking and panic spirals are just a few examples. She isn’t written as this fearless heroin; there’s a vulnerability to her which helps create the story’s tension. You’re rooting for her.
Overall, I have this 5/5 stars and I highly recommend, and I recommend his first book We Used to Live here.
Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post. As always, thank you for reading:)