Description from Goodreads
From the internationally best-selling author, a chilling fresh spin on the classic horror novel • When the voices call, don’t answer.
“In The Night House, the horror begins immediately. And it only keeps calling from there.”—Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Spin a Black Yarn
In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .
She’s going to burn. The girl you love is going to burn. There’s nothing you can do about it.
When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence—and preserve his sanity—as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.
Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story . . .
My Thoughts on the Book
I gotta preface this with I had to DNF this book after roughly 50 pages, so I can't give a proper review of the entire book.
Of the roughly 50 pages that I did manage to read before giving up, a few elements started to grate me a bit. There's fatphobia, homophobia, the old clichés of "the adults don't believe me", and being followed by a mysterious car. And that's only within the 50 or so first pages. Fair enough The Night House more of a YA novel, but come on, be a bit original, but if one is going to make use of tropes and clichés, put some effort in and make it a bit more interesting. And this comes from someone who has read plenty of horror and paranormal novels that has made use of elements like haunted houses, ghosts, and what-not. The tropes and clichés themselves aren't the problem, it's how they're used within a story.
The book has a great cover though, I can admit that, but that's one of the few elements I enjoyed with The Night House. Considering some of the reviews of this book over on Goodreads, it may have been a good thing I had to give up on this book, as mental illness and/or "it was all a dream", is a bit of a cop-out to say it the least. This doesn't even cover how it can be perceived in regards of those who struggle with a mental illness either. Mental illnesses is not a damn plot device.
There might be people out there who would enjoy reading The Night House, but I'm glad I gave up on it. If anything, The Night House has showed me why I've been a bit reluctant to read books by Jo Nesbø in the first place and I'm honestly not tempted to read any of his other works based on this one.
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