Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the NetGalley ARC. This book comes out in the US on September 28, 2021. A slow burn with gothic undertones steeped in uneasiness and squalor, The Last House on Needless Street is an oppressive mystery that, despite all its darkness and confusion, arrives a hopeful and satisfactory ending and rewards an attentive reader.Īudiobook narrator Christopher Ragland does an admirable job of giving each of the characters a distinct voice, energy, and personality. I found myself constantly swinging between feeling sorry for Needless Street’s residents, despising and suspecting different characters of wrongdoing, admiring them for their perseverance in the face of adversity, thinking I had answers, and feeling like there was something I wasn’t quite grasping. Is Ted the kidnapper? Is Lauren really Dee’s missing sister, Laura? Does someone outside the house mean its residents harm, or is it someone inside? Is the source of the weird discontinuities in the house supernatural, or psychological? Things get even more troubling when a woman named Dee arrives in the neighborhood, searching for answers about her little sister’s disappearance at a nearby lake some years ago.

A cast of unreliable narrators muddies the waters of a nonlinear timeline, shedding constant doubt upon the reality and sanity of the residents of the house on Needless Street, a quiet lane bordering the forest in Washington state.Ī troubled man named Ted lives in a dilapidated house with his daughter (Lauren) and his cat (Olivia), but things don’t seem quite right, and the sense of wrongness intensifies throughout the book, not just with them, but with the flashbacks of Ted’s mother, his budget psychiatrist, his failed attempts at online dating… The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is a weird, sprawling tale of trauma, abuse, neglect, isolation, and tragedy that keeps you guessing as to what’s really happening. Other Subreddits that might interest you: Horror Award Nominees & Winners, 1975-2013 R/horrorlit's TOP 10 GREATEST NON-SUPERNATURAL HORROR NOVELS OF ALL TIME!!! R/horrorlit's TOP 10 GREATEST HORROR SHORT STORIES OF ALL TIME!!! R/horrorlit's TOP 10 GREATEST HORROR NOVELS OF ALL TIME!!!! If you would like to mask a potential spoiler, use the following format: (/spoiler)Īll times in ET (EST/EDT) unless otherwise noted. Spoiler tags are left to user discretion. Some rule violations may result in a temporary or permanent ban on the first strike. We do ask that you help us keep a high level of discourse by avoiding image-only posts, blog spam, surveys, plugging your own unpublished or self-published fiction, and linking to fundraisers or items for sale.

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The last house on needless