The Night House by Jo Nesbo (2023)
Upon completion, I did thoroughly like this book........but I'm not sure it's such a great idea to market it as pure unadulterated horror, complete with a blood dripping phone and a looming haunted house.
Here's what took me by surprise, in terms of the book not quite turning out the way its cover seems to promise. Jo Nesbo cleverly makes use of all the familiar tropes you'd find in a Stephen King bestseller. But he deploys them in service of the book's final explanatory chapter, the third section of three major chapters.
As satisfying as that climactic chapter reads, with all "i"s dotted and all "t"s crossed, you come to realize that bone chilling, nightmarish horror was never the intention here......but rather a dark, unsettling but yet heartfelt, sympathetic excursion into psychological trauma.
I realize that sounds deliberately vague and elusive, but "The Night House" is so packed to the rafters with twist, after twist, after twist that I can only risk a brief rundown of its opening. It's a barnburner alright, pretty much the inspiration for the lurid, eye popping front cover. Imagine a typical 800 page Stephen King blockbuster compressed into novella length, You'll find all the King-ian tropes in place, all coming at you, one on top of the other. Loads of fun to read, but to me anyway, it felt almost like a sly, deadpan spoof of "It". therefore not particularly scary.
Then comes the primary reason I ended up enjoying the book.......the way the next two extended chapters proceed to repeatedly pull the rug out from under you, leaving you dizzy with surprises......right up to the final page. So I'd most definitely recommend "The Night House" as a unique, entertaining thriller with a whole lot more on its mind (and its plot) than that blood soaked phone on the cover. You just need to hang in there for the twists.......4 stars (****)
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