This certainly had its moments, but overall Disturbance fell flat for me. I was expecting more heightened/heated exchanges - a touch of horror (given the synopsis), but what I got was more domestic drama. Maybe a bigger hit if you go into it expecting that.

This was a solid 3 star read for me. I appreciated the narrator's descent into madness, but wish the author had leaned more into the witchyness of it all.

Immersive and original. This is a recommended purchase for collections where horror and thrillers are popular.

Disturbance is a fascinating book told in the perspective of a domestic abuse survivor who becomes intrigued by her neighbor. It's tightly written and no words are wasted in this slim novel. I was immediately intrigued by the novel as I was brought into the narrator's world. We learn about her tumultuous relationship with her ex-boyfriend and the mental and emotional struggles of recovery. The story becomes more and more disturbing as we're not sure why her apartment seems haunted by him. I listened to the audiobook, which was perfectly narrated by Catrin Walker-Booth. This won't be for everyone, but this was quite a chilling read.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing this ebook/audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

3.5⭐

Jenna Clake’s Disturbance revolves around a twenty-six-year-old woman as she struggles to cope in the aftermath of an abusive relationship. Our unnamed narrator has recently moved into a new apartment after ending an abusive relationship that lasted for over four years. She is haunted by her experiences, traumatized to the point that she feels like she is always being watched, almost as if her former boyfriend is still a presence in her life. She also believes the strange occurrences in her new home are indicative of sinister forces at play. She does not socialize with her neighbors much (though she does keep her eyes and ears open), is wary of seeking professional help and works from home, limiting her interactions with the outside world. One day she observes her teenage neighbor Chelsea and Chelsea’s friend Jess performing an occult ritual of sorts and gathers that they are casting spells to “banish” Chelsea’s boyfriend with whom she is having problems. Our narrator befriends the girls and gets embroiled In their lives and their problems all the while hoping that not only would she be able to make sense of her own life and deal with her trauma but also protect another young girl from a toxic relationship. She befriends a young man by the name of Eddie, who encourages her to seek professional help. As the narrative progresses we follow our unnamed narrator as she deals with the consequences of choices she makes.

The author is unflinching in how she dissects the relationship between our unnamed narrator and her former boyfriend – the emotional and physical abuse and gaslighting and what that does to our narrator’s sense of self – her denial, self –doubt and how she is unable to emerge from her feeling of suffocation, self-blame and fear even after ending the relationship. The narrative is presented from the limited first-person POV of our narrator and we are given an intimate look into her psyche as she experiences traumatic memories, paranoia, and fixation with her neighbor’s relationship problems (projecting her own experiences onto what she believes is a toxic relationship in the making) and her obsession with spells and the occult as an outlet for her frustrations.

Touching upon themes of toxic relationships, domestic abuse and mental health this is an intense (bordering on claustrophobic) and atmospheric read. However, the ending might prove a tad less than satisfying for many readers with too many threads unresolved and much of what transpires left to the reader's interpretation. Needless to say, this is not an easy read but it is a thought-provoking one.

I paired my reading with the audio narration by Catrin Walker-Booth, who does an exceptional job of conveying the narrator's state of mind and setting the tone for this atmospheric read.

Many thanks to W.W. Norton and Company, Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the digital review copy and the ALC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on July 4, 2023.

This was a quirkier book than I think I expected but I liked it a lot. The subject matter was dark--domestic violence--but it was an interesting angle to come at it. Black magic is definitely an option when it comes to dealing with this type of problem. I liked how you weren't sure if she brought back the boyfriend or if it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

I want to start off by saying that this could be a good/neutral book for a lot of people, but I really did not like this book. I was pretty disconnected from all the characters and everything that happened. The premise of this book is definitely something that could have blown me away, but man did it not hit.

There were a good amount of sensitive topics tackled in this book, but it was lost on me. The narrator is recovering from domestic abuse, but the magic made me not feel anything. If this book was any longer I would have for sure Dnfed it.

OH MY GOODNESS....That was fantastic.

WW Norton always comes out of the woodwork with these fantastic reads, and I was utterly captivated by this tale.

Our leading lady is broken and beaten after leaving her abusive ex-boyfriend, uprooting her life entirely to start a new in a different part of town. Upon moving into her new flat, our MC catches the eye and ears of her new neighbors, hearing them fight through the walls and hash out their differences nightly.

One evening, though the lens of our MC, we see their young daughter Chelsea and her friend Jessica casting spells with candles, crystals, and tons of hushed whispers and weary glances. Come to find out; the two girls are conducting rituals to cut the chord between Chelsea and her toxic man. Eager to learn more, our MC throws some ingredients together, only to find she's way in over her head and has sent her flat in for a reactive trip.

Disturbance by Jenna Clake is set to hit shelves on July 4, 2023, and I cannot wait.

This was so fun and weird and witchy. I will say I assumed by the blurb it would be more witchy and scary, but it was more of a slow mental burn. Great but maybe expected a little bit more.

This was a bit of a challenge to read, but after finishing it and sitting with my thoughts a while I think I understand why it was so challenging. My primary complaint was that it's hard to get a sense of the narrator -- we never learn her name, and she doesn't seem to have much of a personality. But she's a victim of intimate partner violence, and we're meeting her only a year or two after escaping an abusive four year relationship in which she had to sublimate every aspect of herself for survival -- of course she seems flat, that's the whole point. The entire story is an allegory of what it's like to survive IPV, come to terms with the ugliness of what happened and the self-abandoning choices you made to survive, and rebuild your life afterward. It's haunting and stays with you long after you finish, and I hope it finds the audience it deserves. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This story follows a woman who turns to black magic to try to heal herself after getting out of an abusive relationship.
The writing style here wasn’t my favorite. That’s a personal thing though so others might enjoy more!