Firstly, great book cover. Almost alluring. I just had to read this book. After reading Then She Was Gone, I was enamored by her narrative style. It is very fast paced, doesn't give you time to breathe before throwing one after another surprise. And before long you realize your eyes are bulging out, you have goosebumps and your heart is racing. Yes, it's that gooood! Believe me when I say this, because I am a rather slow reader, yet I managed to finish this one in 2 days. The fastest read by far in months.
But I would say that the explanations for a few characters' story towards the end was a bit unreasonable and a tad boring for me. But that can be excused, of course. It is difficult to come across thrillers these days that actually do thrill. Being able to predict and just waiting for the story to go in that direction isn't thrilling. This book, we wait with bated breathes so as to know what happens next. The family, the people that come into their lives, the power struggle, everything is made sinister by the narration.
The Family Upstairs by
Lisa Jewell
My rating:
4 of 5 starsLibby receives a letter on her 25th birthday that says she has inherited an old house, more of a wooden mansion from her birth parents. She further discovers a newspaper article that talks of a suicide pact, a few dead bodies, a cult of some sort, missing teenagers and her- the baby that was left behind- hale and hearty, properly cared for and looked after. There's a ruined socialite family once very rich and indulgent, who apparently lived in sheer poverty within a few years, and too many strangers that had come to live in that house. And no shoes in the entire trap doored, wooden floored building. A herb garden where poison was grown, and so many books of spells and potions. Like straight out of a medieval story.
The narration is so sinister that it gave me goosebumps. I couldn't read this at night, the narratives by three different persons suck you directly into the middle of action. There are people who know that Libby, aka Serenity Lamb has now turned 25, and return from their own self imposed exile for years, to the house which was the center of so many dark unimaginable events. We read Henry's version who narrates the start to end of events from 1980's, then Lucy's who tries to come back to England with her children from France, and then there's Libby's version who is like us, the readers, trying to figure it all out about her birth parents, their family, her siblings and what became of them.
Doesn't disappoint. A good choice for a thriller.
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