The Last House on Needless Street
Apr. 15th, 2021 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI don't normally get on with creepy thrillers so I'm not sure why I decided to read The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward.
But interestingly, the issues I had with it were not the expected ones - ie getting freaked out or ending up skimming just to find out what happened in the end.
Because it's a very well-written, engaging, cleverly constructed book that kept me reading and paying attention to the writing (not just the twists), with interesting characters and some good mysteries.
The marketing text says:
"This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.
All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...
You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong."
But I wasn't wrong. And I have read this story before - a fair few times now... And that's where my personal reader experience failed me, since the book involves a trope I've seen so many times that I figured out what it was going to be pretty early on. But the language above made me think maybe it would be something completely different, which kept me reading (along with several mystery aspects I didn't figure out and were well done overall) - and then it wasn't different after all.
For readers who are unfamiliar with this particular trope, the book will likely be a revelation and satisfyingly surprising, because this is an extremely good example of that trope done very well, with some new and unexpected aspects. So I applaud the author for that - and I did enjoy the book overall. But it's not remotely new - but then what is?
But interestingly, the issues I had with it were not the expected ones - ie getting freaked out or ending up skimming just to find out what happened in the end.
Because it's a very well-written, engaging, cleverly constructed book that kept me reading and paying attention to the writing (not just the twists), with interesting characters and some good mysteries.
The marketing text says:
"This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.
All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...
You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong."
But I wasn't wrong. And I have read this story before - a fair few times now... And that's where my personal reader experience failed me, since the book involves a trope I've seen so many times that I figured out what it was going to be pretty early on. But the language above made me think maybe it would be something completely different, which kept me reading (along with several mystery aspects I didn't figure out and were well done overall) - and then it wasn't different after all.
For readers who are unfamiliar with this particular trope, the book will likely be a revelation and satisfyingly surprising, because this is an extremely good example of that trope done very well, with some new and unexpected aspects. So I applaud the author for that - and I did enjoy the book overall. But it's not remotely new - but then what is?
