Review by skurtyka89 - We Used to Live Here

skurtyka89 's review for:

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

2.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It’s not a great book, and definitely live up to the insane hype that’s been circling it. It was insanely creepy and scary though (had to read it during the day and even then it freaked me out). It would have been a quick read if I hadn’t been so scared and had to take breaks while reading it - the plot pretty fast. The main character was incredibly annoying though and left me so frustrated with her fearful, shy, passive, people pleasing nature and subsequent decisions/actions. The story was weird and convoluted. But I was able to piece together enough by the end, that while there were still a lot of plot points left hanging, the weirdness, otherworldlyness, and unreliability of the whole story left me not really caring about those unanswered questions (in a weird way it makes sense that we wouldn’t get answers). I acknowledge the book’s disturbing and horror nature that continued all the way through to the ending (actually keeping me up at night and worrying throughout the day), interesting concept, uncomfortable way of providing clues/information (random documents interspersed), and the vastness of the story (hidden codes that make you do your own research outside of the story itself and have whole Reddit threads about). But the weakness of the main female character, the complete randomness of many plot points, and having to do extra research outside of the story was annoying. From other people’s reviews, I expected to be left with mouth hanging open, not understanding anything, and totally spiraling with disturbing unanswered questions at the end. This was not my experience - I felt that the author gave plenty of info actually, which I was easily able to piece together to make some overarching sense of what had happened. The plot points left hanging were kind of minor and I don’t feel were super pressing to get answers to (the story still makes an overall “sense” without them). And aren’t horror books supposed to leave you with an unsettled feeling anyway?

Content Warnings