Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - No One Gets Out Alive

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

No One Gets Out Alive by Adam L.G. Nevill

5 reviews

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was a hard book to rate - ultimately I'd rate the actual story as lower (I'll explain why) but if I was rating the quality of the writing, it'd be rated way higher (Adam Nevill is a goddamn wordsmith and I swear no one writes so eloquently).

I've read a good handful of Nevill's books and short stories now and I have come to a theory that he writes two distinct types of stories - ones in which there are horrifiying humanoid entities that will scare the crap out of you, and ones where the antagonists are real people who will dehumanize you and disrespect your boundaries to the point of utter despair and hopelessness. An example of the first option is Last Days and an example of the second option is Yellow Teeth. I love the stories about the spooks and I don't enjoy the stories about the real people who treat the MC poorly and ruin their lives.

No One Gets Out Alive is a bit of both but it leans more heavily to the latter type of story and while it was written well, I found myself not enjoying it. I felt physically ill at the hopelessness of our MC's situation. I was expecting a haunted house story, not an evil landlord story.

This book is about Stephanie, a young woman who's down on her luck. Her parents have both passed away, she has gone through a recent breakup, and she's out on her own trying to gain independence in a city where jobs pay very little and are hard to come by. She doesn't want to return home to her abusive stepmother. She moves into a room in an old house because rent is cheap then quickly realizes she doesn't want to be there - there's unsettling noises in the night, the other tenants are evasive, and her landlord is a conceited asshole on a power trip. Stephanie isn't a bad person and she's trying to navigate through her problems as logically as possible.

The villains are incredibly well written - they're menacing and I love how Nevill really gives them a voice. I love how he writes using their accents. All the descriptions of the house were vivid. You feel like you're there. You can smell the filth and hear the sounds. It's an immersive experience.

This book is similar to The Ritual in that halfway through in what feels like the climax of the story, it takes a turn and the pacing and overall story totally change. While there were certain aspects of the latter part of the story that felt quite spooky, I wish it didn't happen the way it does. The tonal shift brought the pace to a screetching halt and it was such a long book that I wanted it to be over at that point.

Idk if I am allowed to complain about this, but my main beef with this book comes from what it's actually about once all is revealed.

The motive of the landlords is they want to keep women captive in the house so they can sex traffick them. The windows are barred, the doors are locked, and they threaten to beat the women or pour acid on their faces if they don't comply with the slavery. I read a memoir on modern trafficking a few years ago and the author basically nailed it but it's horrible to read about. Any rape in the book isn't graphically written (and our MC doesn't get raped) but the fear, disgust, and hopelessness is written so vividly that is is hard to stomach. Most of the book is about this. There's also ghosts in the house of women who previously died there.

The second half of the book deals a bit more with the paranormal. Here's a basic, general spoiler of what the paranormal aspect is all about:

We find out that there's an entity/god? named Black Maggie in the house that's kept in an off limits area of the house. The landlords sadistic cousin, Fergal, serves Black Mag and harvests body parts from people who have died to decorate her physical form and trap the spirits with her.

Now to spoil how the story shifts in the second half:

The climax of the story involves Stephanie killing one of her captors, rescuing the other girl, and injuring Fergal who ultimately escapes with Black Maggie before the police arrive. In the second half of the book, shes now rich and famous, having capitalized on her experience. She's still paranoid because Fergal was never found. She builds a high tech secure house in the country and the ghosts from the haunted house begin to show up. She starts feeling like Fergal is watching her and stalking her and having visions of Black Maggie. Eventually we find out that Fergal committed suicide by burying himself alive with Black Mag under her house. After finding them both, she burns their bodies and sets the spirits free. Then she burns her house down and decides to spend time travelling.

This books felt like two totally separate stories squished together and I didn't love that. I would have preferred if it focused more on the haunted house aspect and less on the other stuff. I must say that I had a hard time putting the book down some nights because things got so bad for our MC that I literally needed to keep reading until things improved a bit otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sleep.

Did I enjoy the book? No. Is it a horrible book? Also no. I think you just need to be in the right mindset for it. I wasn't prepared for a novel so bleak when I picked it up.

Content Warnings