You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
novelvisits 's review for:
Our House
by Louise Candlish
My Thoughts: The premise of Our House is what first drew me in. Can you imagine coming home from a trip and finding strangers moving into YOUR house? Terrifying! I had to know how this happened to Fiona Lawson and what she’d do about it. That story involved a crumbling marriage, an unconventional parenting plan, and a completely feckless husband. Said feckless man, Bram, nearly tanked Our House for me. Candlish’s story was completely dependent on Bram making one awful decision after another. The seventh grade boys I teach have more foresight and impulse control than Bram did. This quickly grew frustrating and was THE major flaw with Our House.
I really enjoyed the way Candlish chose to build suspense with the structure her latest book. Told mainly in first person by both Fiona and Bram, the story also slipped into third person for some parts. Fiona told her story via a Serial-like podcast called “The Victim” and Bram told his through a very long Word document that formed his suicide note. I liked the back and forth and seeing the view each character had of their lives. I knew from reading another review that the ending of Our House had a surprising twist and found myself revising my theory of what that would be over and over again. Had I not been awaiting this twist, I may have given up on Bram’s antics. So, in the end was the twist worth the 12+ hours of this audiobook? Yes, it was! (But I also think the book could have been a little more tightly edited.) Grade: B-
Narrators: Elizabeth Knowelden did a great job reading Fiona’s side of the story, but Eliot Hill fell a little short for me. It can be hard to separate a character you don’t like from its narrator and that is likely part of the problem here, however pace was another. I found Hill’s reading slow and listened to the last half of the book on 1.25 speed which was fast for Knowelden’s parts, leaving me a little unsatisfied with either speed.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/audiobook-mini-reviews-a-domestic-suspense-edition/
I really enjoyed the way Candlish chose to build suspense with the structure her latest book. Told mainly in first person by both Fiona and Bram, the story also slipped into third person for some parts. Fiona told her story via a Serial-like podcast called “The Victim” and Bram told his through a very long Word document that formed his suicide note. I liked the back and forth and seeing the view each character had of their lives. I knew from reading another review that the ending of Our House had a surprising twist and found myself revising my theory of what that would be over and over again. Had I not been awaiting this twist, I may have given up on Bram’s antics. So, in the end was the twist worth the 12+ hours of this audiobook? Yes, it was! (But I also think the book could have been a little more tightly edited.) Grade: B-
Narrators: Elizabeth Knowelden did a great job reading Fiona’s side of the story, but Eliot Hill fell a little short for me. It can be hard to separate a character you don’t like from its narrator and that is likely part of the problem here, however pace was another. I found Hill’s reading slow and listened to the last half of the book on 1.25 speed which was fast for Knowelden’s parts, leaving me a little unsatisfied with either speed.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/audiobook-mini-reviews-a-domestic-suspense-edition/