<b>Whaaaaaaaaaaat!?!? I am officially all freaked out!!</b>

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I was so close to DNFing this audiobook because, at first, I found it tiresome to listen to Ted's minute description of his cloistered life with his daughter, Lauren and his cat, Olivia.

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Then, as the story progressed, the bizarre hints of something dark and horrible lurking in the background started making me feel extremely anxious. I did suspect dissociative personality disorder, but not the extent of it, and that ginormous twist at the end had me shaking my head with bewilderment and spluttering, "but..... but..... but.....!"

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This is a book you should read - or, as in my case, listen to - twice. (But I just don't think I could bear to listen to it again! Oh my nerves! My poor nerves!!)
Holy smokers, this was a jaw dropper!

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I therefore highly encourage you to stick with it and get past the first few chapters. Nothing makes sense until the very end. Everyone has secrets that they are hiding, even Dee, who devotes her life to searching for her abducted sister, Lulu. The twists just kept coming: total shocker! I'm scarred for life now!

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I totally understand why the movie rights for this novel were snatched up even before it hit the proverbial bookshelves.

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I'm going to rate this one a 5 out of 5 stars just because I was so, so, so, so, so, so WRONG!!! And the part that I got right just did not matter in comparison! I've never been so flabbergasted in my life! You won't know what hit you in the end!

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My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of the Audiobook, which was brilliantly narrated and dramatized by Christopher Ragland. His range of voice modulation is incredible: and his imitation of female voices was equally superb and totally convincing!!

3 Stars
TW; Animal abuse, kidnapping, and stalking.

The House on Needless Street was perhaps one of my most anticipated reads of 2021. However, I felt it came short of what I expected. Normally, I love these kinds of books on audiobook, but this one felt incomplete. The narrator made things a bit confusing for me.

There were a lot of POVS and when we got the pov from a cat, I was even more put off. Mainly because I was not expecting that? I can say it was a wild ride from start to finish.

I do think that perhaps this would have been a better book if I had physically read it. Maybe then it wouldn't have been so confusing. I might attempt to give it another go when it officially comes out.

Holy shit, this audiobook. I thought I had everything figured out, and then the last two hours made me look at everything I had assumed. I'm not going to sum up the storyline because this book plays on very unreliable narrators. You can figure early that the many narrators lie to you and themselves, but how deep the lie is surprising.

There is a certain mental illness (that because of spoilers, I'm not going to name it) that is usually written as a fun plot device, but this is the only fictional book that I've seen accurately portray it.

I wish that I could gush more about the book, but I'm worried that I will spoil something, and this book needs to be read or listened to without knowing much.

Review based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

Going into this, I thought it would be an interesting thriller about some serial killer / murder -- which it is… just not in way I expected it to be. In the beginning, an eerie, horror-like mood is set as Ted locks all his doors and his paranoia makes you wonder. Even so, I found myself confused and put off by Ted’s childlike vocabulary and his cat, Olivia. Olivia, we learn, has been under Ted’s care for ages though she’s a little odd -- she can talk (or readers can at least see her POV), reads from the bible, and might be gay? (oh, and the audiobook meowing didn’t help things either). Soon, we’re introduced to a side storyline in which 11 years ago, Dee and her family lost their 6 year old sister / daughter. Are these two storylines somehow connected?

Personally, I found the plot a bit convoluted, and the parts that put me off weren’t the best to bear through. I do admit that I was intrigued and wanted to know how everything was connected. It was fairly disturbing as well and was genuinely sad and hard to process. The twist was not something I expected though I’m still not sure if I truly grasped what happened. Overall, this book wasn’t for me, but it is still interesting.

Thanks NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for my copy!

WOW WOW WOW!! 4.5 Stars!

If you like page-turning-what-the-heck-is going-on-twisty-weird-huh-no!-wait!-oh-crap-I-knew-it-no-I’m-wrong-keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat reading…. Go Get This Book!!

I could NOT put this down. At the very last page I wanted to go back to the first page and start it all over again! I wanted to retrace my steps, align everything up again and catch what I may have missed.

The publisher’s description of this book is totally correct: “You think you’ve read this story before. That’s where you are wrong.” SO TRUE!

To summarize this book without giving anything away is tricky. This book is told from multiple perspectives (a cat included) and pops around between different time periods. Its generally about a guy who doesn’t fit in, his past, his present and all the really crazy stuff that has and is going on in his life.

I have heard some people say this is a horror. I’m my opinion, now way. This is not a horror. The closest I get to horror is Stephen King and this doesn’t even touch some of the creepy goings on in Maine.

The narrator of the audiobook... forget about it! Amazing! I thought I was listening to a few different people there for a while. Christopher Ragland is unbelievable, seriously. I am going to have to search out some other books he has narrated just because of him.

The ONLY reason this didn’t get 5 stars from me (which I rarely give out) is because there were some things that were super disturbing to me (mini spoiler) regarding animals getting hurt. But, this is part of this story and the book is fantastic.

Oh... I will be reading this again. A few book club commitments and I’m right back to page one of this doozy!

Special thanks to Macmillan Audio, Cateiona Ward & NetGalley.
#TheLastHouseOnNeedlessStreet #NetGalley

The last house on Needless Street looks like any other house. Inside the house is a house of horrors.
Years ago, the resident was questioned about the disappearance of a little girl. He was never charged with anything, but the stigma never went away. The girl was never found, and life moved on.
The older sister of the little girl never gave up hope she would be found. All roads in the investigation lead to Needless Street. Is she ready for the horrors behind the front door of the house at the end of Needless Street? No one is..

This book was a spiral into madness. There might be too much crazy for one book. Think of Norman Bates multiplied by a thousand. Psycho has nothing on this.
The narrative shifts between the main character, his cat and daughter. Listening to this as an audiobook, with the narrator using different voices for each character, made the story come to life. I especially liked the voice of the cat, Olivia. lol
I wouldn't say the book is Horror. I couldnt find anything in it that would put it in that genre. If Wierd Fiction were a classification for books, I would put it there. I got a big Neil Gaiman vibe, and I totally classify his stuff as Wierd Fiction. I liked the decent into madness and the strange things that happen in the woods, it kept me in suspense.
The book was not what I expected. Though it eventually went to a dark place in the second half of the book, I wanted it to start that way. It took a while to get hooked, but when I did it was great.

3.5/5 stars. This book is so hard to review without giving away too much of the story! In a nutshell, Ted is a strange shut-in who lives with his cat and his daughter, Lauren. A girl goes missing in a nearby lake and Ted is accused of her disappearance. The girl’s sister will stop at nothing to find her. By the end of the story, dark secrets unfold and you realize that nothing is as it appears to be.

I wanted to like this book, and in theory, I did. I finished it in 2.5 days, which is pretty quick for me. I will add that the narrator of the audiobook is awesome!

This book is a creepy, slow burn. A couple of things to note: The story is told from multiple points of view, including that of a cat! In fact, there are lots of cat descriptions in the book. I am not a cat lover myself and so I think that part was a turn off for me. However, cat lovers who love creepy atmospheric slow-burn books will absolutely LOVE this book.

In the end, I actually wanted to read the book again to analyze what the heck I had just read! Kudos to the author for that. This is one book I won’t soon forget.

Special thank you to #netgalley and #macmillan audio for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Where to start with this one? I listened to the audio version of this book, and the narrator was excellent. This is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. I think a 4 star feels right to me, but it’s a very difficult one to rate. This book is categorized as a horror, and I can see why, but it’s much more a psychological story in my opinion.

While I was listening to this book, it felt so odd and confusing sometimes, but it was interesting to pay attention to the small details and I was actually able to figure out what was going on, but it was definitely a wild ride! I think you have to go into this one open minded and give it a fair shot before you develop an opinion because it’s very much a story that means more at the ending when everything is kind of puzzled together.

The afterword and bibliography added another interesting layer to this and I also watched one of the videos that the author mentioned in it to learn more about the topic (which I will not mention, because that would be a spoiler), and that made this reading experience even more interesting to me. It’s a topic that, especially in the horror/thriller genre, can be tricky to do in the right way but it was obvious that Catriona Ward did a great job and it was clear that she was well researched on it as well.

While I didn’t absolutely love it WHILE I was reading it, looking back on it once I finished it, I think it’s a very interesting and unique read which I’m sure will stay with me for a long time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5. Wow, creepy and unsettling. Almost impossible to review without spoiling.

Page Count: 352
Publication Date: 9-28-21 (U.S. release)

Hey all you cool cats and kittens! 🐈‍⬛ Ok, this novel is BANANAS. Black, mushy, overripe ones that are rotting on the countertop. I listened to it and pretty much ignored my family so that I could finish the last 25% in one straight shot. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards. This book will not be for everyone. Read if you:
- Like stories that are weird and creepy (this needs to be a given). This story is not like Gone Girl. It is closer to horror.
- Are ok with not really understanding everything along the way.
- Don’t mind having a cat as one of your narrators (there are four POVs).
- Can handle the trigger warnings: child abuse, missing children, mental illness.

Catriona Ward crafted a really smart, well-written story, and Christopher Ragland is an incredibly talented narrator! That’s about all I can say about this one without spoiling it. It was a nice change of pace for me. Many thanks to @macmillan,audio, @tornightfire, and @netgalley for an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be published on Goodreads and Instagram (@safranliterarygal).

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced audiobook copy.

First, the audio. The audiobook was fine. Narrator was fine.

Now, the book, I really really didn’t like this book. I was just so confused and didn’t care what was going on or the characters.

This is an unfortunate DNF for me. I just thought the story was a bit too weird and I didn't enjoy the narrator. I found myself not wanting to listen, so I'm moving on. Thanks for the chance to review this ALC.

I have a little request for those of you who’ve already read this. Could you all raise your hand if the first thought after finishing this book was something like:

“WTF did I just read?!”

Those of you who have yet to read it, and I recommend that you do … just wait. You’ll get what I’m saying soon enough.

Catriona Ward has written the only book I can think of in recent memory that I have no clue how to review without giving spoilers, but here it goes:

Ted lives alone in a boarded up house on Needless Street with his daughter, Lauren, and his cat, Olivia. By the way, the cat is one of the narrators, so that should give you some idea of the mind games this book will play with you, but c’mon … how could I not love that? Spoiler: I did.

In an alternate scenario, there’s a family out for a beach day, including sisters, Dee and Lulu - only by the end of it, one sister is nowhere to be found. What happened that day? What does this family’s experience have to do with Ted - or does it? That’s the twisted mystery that lies ahead for the reader, only I warn you - whatever you think you have figured out, you’re most likely wrong.

Have you seen a kaleidoscope? You know - the toy where you look into the hole on one end and twist the other end so the colors and shapes change and everything reconfigures in a new way? This book is like that. Just when you think you’re making out the shapes and colors you’re seeing, a twist happens and all those pieces come together in a completely different way. Personally, I loved those toys, and I enjoyed every new twist this book offered. You won’t know which way is up, the narrators are ALL unreliable, and the story will send you ten different directions so you can’t get your bearings, but that’s the beauty of it. If it were simple it wouldn’t be fun. The irony is that by the end of it, the actual explanation kinda made perfect sense, so I didn’t feel like I needed to suspend any disbelief.

Well, that’s the best I can do with this one. Read it and enjoy all those beautiful and colorful twists! I listened to this on audio, narrated by Christopher Ragland, and he did a brilliant job voicing all the parts. I HIGHLY recommend trying it in whatever form - print or audio - that makes you happy!

★★★★

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, NetGalley, and author Catriona Ward for this audio in exchange for my honest review. It will be published September 28, 2021.

The Last House on Needless Street combines not one, but four unreliable narrators to a well constructed conclusion. I preferred the print book to the narration for this one, primarily because I felt throughout that a cast would have been a better way to go, making the disparate voices more distinctive. Yes, I understand the choice, but for clarity during the reading would have preferred other voices.

How to describe and review this book? I read a review where the reader admitted to have predicted the plot, but I was absolutely dumbfounded at every turn. DUMBFOUNDED. I predicted nothing.

Which is a good thing, right? This book is part thriller, sort of, and that part is totally epic. It's part psychological horror, and it totally got under my skin.

My problem with this book is that it's a kidnapping and child abuse story with no warning of that in the description. I love horror, but anything involving children and mothers like this can be super triggering. But also, this book is a deep, deep dive into disturbed, broken, twisted minds. It's so raw and gritty in a psychological way that I found super disturbing. It was hard to read this for entertainment when my heart wanted to grieve for the real people who may be in this circumstance.

That negative feeling stood out to me because no book has ever made me feel that way. For all the ways it's a true representation of mental health, it's good. The ending is absolute perfection for the despair of the rest of the book.

With all of that out of the way, it's truly a well spun and well written novel. Really. Catriona Ward disappears beyond the story, it's immersive and intense. Her characters are big and vibrant, And the audiobook is great too, the narrator stood out to me for sure! He somehow managed 4 different characters and voices, both male and female, both childlike and adult, all excellently. Like the author, he disappeared into the story.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for an audiocopy to honestly review.

This was a very unique, creepy, Gothic character driven horror/mystery. So much is known, but unknown at the same time. It's a little slow paced being character driven, but still interesting, leaving the reader wanting to know exactly what is going on. The ending is quite twisty and although I liked it, it was a little rushed. The audiobook was spectacularly narrated. I give 4 stars and would recommend! I think this book is best read without much info about the plot, so don't read too much about it before diving in (except for trigger warnings). Book releases in the US in September!

Listened to this book on audio thanks to MacMillan Audio via NetGalley. The narrator did a fantastic job with all the characters. I was hooked from the beginning. The author had me guessing until the very end and I loved it! I will definitely be going back to read her previous works.

Trigger warnings: child abuse, animal cruelty, kidnapping.

*SCREAMS INTO THE ABYSS*
Does that count as an Official Review™️? Because if not I don’t really know what else to say😅 The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward went above and beyond all of my expectations.

I was a little hesitant listening to this one on audio, but friends, IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! I kept messaging one of my friends while I was listening, telling her how creepy, eerie, twisted, and weird this book was. I don’t often give friends live play-by-play of my thoughts, but this time it was NECESSARY!

The story has multiple points of view, and goes back and forth a bit between past and present. We have Ted, a lonely man who lives by himself in the house he grew up in. Lauren, Ted’s young daughter who visits him occasionally. Olivia, Ted’s cat, who narrates part of the book and is hilarious. And finally, Dee, Ted’s new neighbor, who is trying to find out who kidnapped her little sister when they were younger.

I’d also like to mention Ted’s house as well, because the descriptions of it are creepy as hell, and you all know how much I love a spooky house. Plus, the nearby forest and the secrets it holds is more than enough to set the atmosphere of this book: it’s chilling.

I can’t say much else without giving away spoilers, but the twists and turns in this story were completely unexpected and truly horrifying. You’ll think you have it figured out and then, SURPRISE🙃

Trigger warnings: child abuse, animal abuse, kidnapping, neglect.

Thank you MacMillan Audio and Tor Nightfire for sending me a copy of The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward on audio to review, via NetGalley. It hits shelves in North American on September 28, 2021, and will be the perfect read for Fall!

The audio for this was part of the reason I was so hooked on this story, because it really gave all the narrators a different feel and kept me interested. While I don’t know if I’ll ever read this story, I was really entertained and felt like I couldn’t put it down. The plot twists just kept coming, and left me a little dazed and confused. All in all, a very interesting read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys suspense and is okay with somewhat graphic descriptions.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advanced digital audiobook.

This is a tough one to review.

Why?

First, I don't want to give too much away in my review. Second, it's a book that deals with the very ugliest underbelly of human cruelty, so it's never really an "enjoyable" book.

Ted and his cat, Olivia, are living reasonably contentedly on Needless Street. Ted is struggling to figure out life as an adult, and he clearly has some connection to a young girl who went missing from the area eleven years ago.

When a new neighbor moves in, Ted and Olivia's lives are disrupted and everything changes.

Your interest in this book will hinge on two things, I think.

How curious are you about what is really going on in Ted's mind and what happened in his past? He's clearly an unreliable narrator, and the plot centers on figuring out what he knows and what he has done. The places you'll have to go with him are unpleasant, to say the least.

Also, how well can you deal with Ted's cat Olivia as one of the narrators? I found Olivia incredibly annoying. I stuck it out though, and I think it was worth it in the end.

If you are a regular consumer of horror, you'll likely guess much of what is happening to Ted. However, Ward does have a couple of neat twists that I didn't see coming.

All in all, this is a decent horror story. I think it's overly long and the ending for Ted is perhaps a tad unbelievable, but all in all, a solid entry.

*violence (including violence against children), occasional language

Catriona Ward has created a genre-bending breakthrough novel with The Last House on Needless Street. The format of the book is unique, and I absolutely loved the addition of a cat narrator. It presented the story in a way I never would have even thought about as I was reading.

The Last House on Needless Street will please horror and mystery/thriller fans alike because it has such a perfect blend of those two things. The family dynamics in this story were deep, complex, and heartbreaking, but Ward uses all of that in order to pull the reader in and make them see why the main character acts the way that he does.

I really loved this book and it kept me on the edge of my seat and creeped out the whole time I was reading it.