The Last House on Needless Street

Never in a MILLION years would I have guessed how this book would go.

Many layers to unpack here. .

Without saying/spoiling too much, this novel is both touching and deeply unsettling once you understand the full context ---

• Catriona Ward took the DNA of various genres and created something entirely new. . meshing together elements of psychological thriller/gothic horror, + moments of dark humor throughout; creating a deeply affecting story about trauma/identity.

• The way Ward gradually revealed how all the seemingly separate threads connected in the end, was mind-bending in the best possible way. .

This novel is worth the hype, and I will definitely be looking into more of this author's work in the near future!

I fear this book will be on my mind for awhile.

Three plot twists that almost made me put down the book and go outside

Not sure how i feel about this book, while i feel as though i spent majority of this read scratching my head, wondering what the f**k was going on, the ending really made me eat my words. I don't think I'll be able to get the book out of my head for a while, but i'm giving 4 stars as it's not the kind of book I'd reach for again, but i suppose i'd recommend reading it atleast once, the ending really did make it all worth while...

Go in blind and enjoy the ride.

This was a rough read for me. I had such high hopes and found myself dragging through to finish this book. I kept expecting a good twist to capture me, yet was constantly left confused and disappointed. I know many others enjoyed it. but I truly didn’t like the story line or the end of this book. Maybe I just wasn’t interested to begin with, which didn’t help overall but regardless, there were parts that didn’t make sense or seem to relate to the story and left me hanging.

confusion cat

I have a lot of complicated feelings about this one. I think I may have been a victim of bookstagram hype and walked into this novel with expectations set way too high. The writing style was absolutely beautiful, and kept me going through a twist I can’t say I loved. This one was just a bit off kilter for me. That being said, I’m very excited to read more from Ward.

I LOVED this book. I thought about it for at least a week afterwards and explained it to so many people. I thought it was such a great way to view this mental illness in a way that made it more real.

One of my favorite books ever. So surprising, so dark, so beautifully written. Read it all in like 3 days

Technically, the writing in this book was excellent, but either the descriptions of the book were misleading or I misunderstood. I thought this book was going to be about a haunted house, but it was really about a horrific murder mystery.

Ugh, my ❤. New favorite here.

practically started and finished this in one go. super unique and enthralling. the constant POV change kept the pace quick and cat’s POV was too good. this really went in an unexpected direction but not in a bad way at all. super creepy vibes.

i will forever adore this book!🖤 one of my absolute faves - such a clever execution of the story line and i LOVED olivia, the cat!

Phenomenal! I am absolutely blown away by this story and this author. I have nothing more to say, other than I will recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Because I keep myself on a pretty strict regimen of which books I need to read, it’s hard to fit in books that I might want to read (that aren’t already on my lists) or books my friends have strongly recommended to me. I recently decided I needed to change things up a bit and add those recommendations to my lists. Now each month I have reserved spots for “recommended by a friend” books, and have found, for the most part, my friends are pretty damn good at book suggestions (although, I didn’t love the ones that came from my dad…sorry Pops). I’ve been a Stephen King fan as long as I’ve loved reading. I will always credit King for awakening my inner reader, hell I read him before I even read young adult “horror” writers (Lois Duncan became a favorite, but that was even after I read The Shining). I’m constantly on the hunt for a horror writer that I love as much, but they all fall short. Last year I ran across a really good one by Chuck Wendig, but for the most part, horror just seems to fall short of my hopes and dreams (lofty expectations, I suppose). When I started reading this one…and for a large portion of the book, I was just as disappointed. For most of my life, I’ve been adamant that I had to finish every book I started, and this book is a prime example of why I’ve always felt that way (I have since DNF quite a few books…Jennifer Egan’s books definitely gave me the go-ahead to give up). Slooooooooooooooooooow burn. That is the best way to describe this one, but once Ward gets the flame going, she burned the whole damn house down. Hell, she took neighboring houses with it. She sets the story up with the antagonist and the protagonist…then she threw it all in the trash about 75% of the way through it and completely changed the trajectory. I was reading this one on my phone during a recent hearing on the January 6 insurrection, and despite the compelling testimony on the screen, I was completely entrenched in this story. I looked up at my husband and said “What the F*%#???” over and over…he had no idea I was talking about the book. This book did not play out the way that Ward set it up, and I feel like I need to go through some counseling after the emotional trauma I was left with. It was phenomenal. I cannot gush about it enough, this was an amazing book.

Well, after spending 4 days saying to myself "maybe it gets better", it really didn't. It's clear from the beginning that the main character is highly disturbed and things keep getting so confusing. I loved the idea behind the book, but somehow I didn't connect to the story. It was all so disorienting and so hard to follow, although there's a lot of twists and turns in the end. It just isn't the right book for me.

its hard to say much without spoilers so I will just say I loved this. I was guessing until the very end. creepy but not over the top. felt very authentic. I read through it so quickly.

I got sucked in by the hype for this book. Others have summarized it well, so I won't. It only kinda worked FOR ME. I was pretty uncomfortable in the first part. I knew we were dealing with unreliable narrator(s) here. I don't really enjoy unreliable narrator stories. But I was pretty right about what was going on though, even though I changed my mind about what was happening a couple of times. But then: (view spoiler)[A happy ending??? And a GAY happy ending??? Seriously? Not that I'm against happy endings, but... how was this earned??? That's where I lost interest, and where the book failed FOR ME. I felt like the fairly large infodump at the end of the book was a hasty attempt to "make things right." It just didn't work for me. (hide spoiler)] I listened to the audiobook version. Unlike some, I didn't feel like the narration trivialized the story. It worked for me as expressions of the characters. I'm happy lots of people really liked it. I thought it was ok, but was disappointed toward the end. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3. Memo to self: you KNOW you don't usually react well to stuff that has been enormously hyped like this book was. Future self: LEARN FROM PAST SELF.

4,5

This book completely blew me away, a serious journey of the horror/thriller genre. Constant twists and turns with multiple narrative paths to slowly unravel this mind-bending story. I feel like saying much more will verge into spoilers now I know how this book ends, so I'll just say this, if you're thinking about picking this book up... do it!

this BOOK. what the FUCK. i love when my 5 star reviews end up just being me yelling "what the fuck" into the void because truly i just have nothing of substance to say. i adored this. i can't stop thinking about it. i'm so glad i went into it knowing nothing about it.