feigndark's reviews
49 reviews

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I generally feel like I can piece together a story by the time the middle of a book comes around; and I did in fact think I had it figured out with this one. And I was proven completely and utterly wrong. This book kept throwing curveball after curveball, and I was absolutely hooked until the end. I don't listen to audiobooks often - I can't always pay attention well enough, sometimes I'll doze off, sometimes they just move too slowly and you can't easily skim like you would in a book with pages - but this one drew me in and didn't let go, not until quite some time after the book itself ended.

Not just because of how enthralling the story was - though that was a huge part of it - but the narrators of the audiobook (Christopher Ragland, and I'm afraid I can't find the woman's name anywhere; maybe it was Catriona Ward herself?) were so skilled at painting a picture with their voices. Christopher especially, once we reach the end,

had such a talent for changing his voice to match whichever alter was 'fronting' at the time; not just tone/pitch, but also inflection, and just... everything. It was amazing.

I especially appreciated the ending note/acknowledgements; without giving away the plot twist, I'll just say that I appreciate an author or creator that puts so much effort into researching the things they're writing about; it shows that they took every part of the journey very seriously, and put a lot of thought into it.

Plus the book, I'm pretty sure, is set just a few towns over from me - based on a very brief blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention of where Ted used to work, plus my own research on nearby lakes, etc. - which I think is super cool, lol.

Anyway, I can't recommend this book enough. It's one of the best I've read in a very long time. That said, it isn't for the faint of heart either, so if you're at all uncertain about whether there will be triggering content for you, I highly suggest either checking out the content warnings here on Storygraph, or looking The Last House On Needless Street on doesthedogdie.com. It's miscategorized as a movie on there, but the content warnings are thorough and accurate!

The only reason this isn't a full 5-star review, is that I still had questions by the end - whether or not that was because I missed something, or because the author intended certain things to be ambiguous, I can't be sure, but there are definitely plot points I can't stop thinking about and would love to know the details of!

Content Warnings

The Troop by Nick Cutter

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.

I wanted to like it. It was well written, and definitely had a creepy atmosphere to it; bit heavy on the body horror but I could stomach it. What I couldn't stomach was the unnecessary amount of animal abuse. We get it. The character in question is evil, twisted, screwed up, we've established that, there is absolutely no reason to keep hammering it home with more and more visceral animal torture. And from what I read in another review, I didn't even get to the *worst* examples!

It's a well written book but I definitely think the author tried too hard to rely on shock value and ramping up the gross factor and cruelty factor.

Content Warnings