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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
More of a 3.5 - 3.75 but I'll round up.
I think this would be an excellent reread. I was pretty surprised by some of the twists.
I think this would be an excellent reread. I was pretty surprised by some of the twists.
Perfect in every way. Ward peels back layers of the story masterfully, and every time you think you know what is happening, something appears on the next page that shocks you. Probably my new favourite thriller/ mystery book, The Last House on Needless Street reminded me why I love reading.
I like reading both 5- and 1-star reviews of books before I read them. Of course, I did that with The Last House on Needless Street as well. I thought I knew what I was getting into and decided to give this book a chance anyway.
I can't accurately judge the level of suspense in this book since I joyfully clicked on all the spoilers in the reviews. I knew this was going to be a book about DID going in, so that big reveal wasn't such a big reveal to me after all. However, that doesn't mean I wasn't surprised.
Quite a few reviews here mention that Ted's DID was used as a cheap writing trick to add to the horror, showing people with DID in a bad light. Naturally, I assumed that I was going to read a book about a serial killer with multiple personalities. And for about 80% of the book, it sure looked like there was a build up to exactly that! I'm assuming that the people who left those reviews DNF'ed the book before finishing it.
Knowing the Big Spoiler, for about half of the book I thought this was going to be a modernized take on Psycho. But Ted is no Norman Bates. The Last House on Needless Street is, I think, primarily a book about preconceptions. It does the exact opposite of demonizing DID, if you read it to the end. And I don't know, maybe leading the reader to assume that Ted's DID turned him into a sociopathic serial killer for the majority of the book, only to have a "Gotcha! He was actually the good guy the whole time" moment at the end is the wrong or insensitive thing to do. Maybe. But maybe it isn't. Maybe we are in the wrong for assuming things about Ted.
I liked the little clues Ward left for us in the book, as well as the red herrings. We are never told explicitly that Ted murders the women he goes on dates with, but it is extremely easy to make that assumption. There's a rug in the room that is (almost) always orange in Olivia's narration, but sometimes orange, sometime blue in Ted's, which then makes sense once we learn about the inner place he goes away to in order to shield himself from his trauma. And then, of course, all other small inconsistencies, like Lauren's age or her "going away", or how or why Olivia could hear the "bug man"'s exact words on the TV, etc. It was entertaining to find these little details in the book, and then see how they all came together in the last few chapters of the book.
I also very much appreciate the afterword and the list of resources for learning more about DID - sources that don't only come from clinicians but, perhaps more importantly, also from people who actually live with this condition. Like with any other social issue, it's important to listen to the voices of those who are affected, not just those who treat them or observe them from outside of the group.
There were a couple of things that I wasn't crazy about, too. First person narration isn't really my thing, and while it wasn't jarring, it made it more difficult for me to enjoy this book at times. Then again, I understand why it was necessary to tell Ted's story.
The second thing I didn't particularly like were Olivia's chapters, though maybe it would be better to say that I just found them uneven. I think Olivia's narration had to be the most tricky to write, because on one hand we are supposed to believe - if only at the beginning - that this is written from the perspective of a cat, which is... super hard to do convincingly. The thing is, you still need to use language so that the reader can, well, read it - but cats don't think or speak in human terms. So how do you convey a cats' inner world to your reader? Of course, we later learn that Olivia is one of Ted's alters, so regular cat rules don't apply to her; it might even make sense that the way she narrates her chapters is a little bit of cat, a little bit of human. Except, we don't know that part from the start. Funnily enough, the attempts to "catify" the narration by attempting to make some things sound more alien and unfamiliar from a human's perspective (like calling all humans "teds" or all dogs "brouhahas") made those chapters worse for me, because it just didn't make sense. It felt incredibly random and therefore, like I mentioned, uneven, since most of the time Olivia's thoughts were written in a perfectly "human" language. If a character doesn't know a word for "human", it doesn't make sense that she would use a metaphor like "my tail is long and slim like a wand", or "[his hair] is a somewhat darker shade, like varnished wood". In my opinion, it would have been better if Ward hadn't tried to "catify" Olivia's language if she couldn't do that consistently.
Another small thing that I... didn't dislike as much as it baffled me was the fact that (at least in the print I got) the book starts with four - FOUR - pages of quotes, presumably praise for the book by other authors and/or literary critics. I don't know, because I didn't read more than the first two or three (quotes, not pages), and I genuinely question the point. Like, we get it, lots of important people liked your book. Three or four quotes would have conveyed that well enough.
Overall, though, I did enjoy the book and would definitely recommend it to people.
I can't accurately judge the level of suspense in this book since I joyfully clicked on all the spoilers in the reviews. I knew this was going to be a book about DID going in, so that big reveal wasn't such a big reveal to me after all. However, that doesn't mean I wasn't surprised.
Quite a few reviews here mention that Ted's DID was used as a cheap writing trick to add to the horror, showing people with DID in a bad light. Naturally, I assumed that I was going to read a book about a serial killer with multiple personalities. And for about 80% of the book, it sure looked like there was a build up to exactly that! I'm assuming that the people who left those reviews DNF'ed the book before finishing it.
Knowing the Big Spoiler, for about half of the book I thought this was going to be a modernized take on Psycho. But Ted is no Norman Bates. The Last House on Needless Street is, I think, primarily a book about preconceptions. It does the exact opposite of demonizing DID, if you read it to the end. And I don't know, maybe leading the reader to assume that Ted's DID turned him into a sociopathic serial killer for the majority of the book, only to have a "Gotcha! He was actually the good guy the whole time" moment at the end is the wrong or insensitive thing to do. Maybe. But maybe it isn't. Maybe we are in the wrong for assuming things about Ted.
I liked the little clues Ward left for us in the book, as well as the red herrings. We are never told explicitly that Ted murders the women he goes on dates with, but it is extremely easy to make that assumption. There's a rug in the room that is (almost) always orange in Olivia's narration, but sometimes orange, sometime blue in Ted's, which then makes sense once we learn about the inner place he goes away to in order to shield himself from his trauma. And then, of course, all other small inconsistencies, like Lauren's age or her "going away", or how or why Olivia could hear the "bug man"'s exact words on the TV, etc. It was entertaining to find these little details in the book, and then see how they all came together in the last few chapters of the book.
I also very much appreciate the afterword and the list of resources for learning more about DID - sources that don't only come from clinicians but, perhaps more importantly, also from people who actually live with this condition. Like with any other social issue, it's important to listen to the voices of those who are affected, not just those who treat them or observe them from outside of the group.
There were a couple of things that I wasn't crazy about, too. First person narration isn't really my thing, and while it wasn't jarring, it made it more difficult for me to enjoy this book at times. Then again, I understand why it was necessary to tell Ted's story.
The second thing I didn't particularly like were Olivia's chapters, though maybe it would be better to say that I just found them uneven. I think Olivia's narration had to be the most tricky to write, because on one hand we are supposed to believe - if only at the beginning - that this is written from the perspective of a cat, which is... super hard to do convincingly. The thing is, you still need to use language so that the reader can, well, read it - but cats don't think or speak in human terms. So how do you convey a cats' inner world to your reader? Of course, we later learn that Olivia is one of Ted's alters, so regular cat rules don't apply to her; it might even make sense that the way she narrates her chapters is a little bit of cat, a little bit of human. Except, we don't know that part from the start. Funnily enough, the attempts to "catify" the narration by attempting to make some things sound more alien and unfamiliar from a human's perspective (like calling all humans "teds" or all dogs "brouhahas") made those chapters worse for me, because it just didn't make sense. It felt incredibly random and therefore, like I mentioned, uneven, since most of the time Olivia's thoughts were written in a perfectly "human" language. If a character doesn't know a word for "human", it doesn't make sense that she would use a metaphor like "my tail is long and slim like a wand", or "[his hair] is a somewhat darker shade, like varnished wood". In my opinion, it would have been better if Ward hadn't tried to "catify" Olivia's language if she couldn't do that consistently.
Another small thing that I... didn't dislike as much as it baffled me was the fact that (at least in the print I got) the book starts with four - FOUR - pages of quotes, presumably praise for the book by other authors and/or literary critics. I don't know, because I didn't read more than the first two or three (quotes, not pages), and I genuinely question the point. Like, we get it, lots of important people liked your book. Three or four quotes would have conveyed that well enough.
Overall, though, I did enjoy the book and would definitely recommend it to people.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Last House On Needless Street is quite frankly an astonishing piece of work. A novel that constantly pulls the rug from under you, but is never clever for its own sake, and the key to that is the deep empathy shown towards all of the characters. Brilliantly written with unexpectedly funny sections, it's a sublime book.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thought I had it allll figured out but I could not have predicted that ending. Loved it tho!!
Amazing book. Multiple POV works so well and really gripping page turne. Very thought provoking about DID, and has a bibliography! How many novels I've read have that?! Want to read up on some of the references. Was thinking it was a 4, but got better and better to the end, done great twists, and ended up thinking it was a 4.5!
I'm not a fan of animals being hurt/killed, plus this book just wasn't doing anything for me except dragging on, but I stuck with it and I am so glad I did! It wasn't at all what I was expecting. It's a book that will stick with me for a long time.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes