I was really hoping for more from Looking Glass Sound by Ward. It jumped around in time too much. I couldn't keep the characters completely straight. I still have no idea if Sky is a boy or a girl a made-up person.

#LookingGlassSound by #CatrionaWard is the latest #audiobook I’ve listened to thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio and @tornightfire !! On sale Aug 8th!
I’ve been a fan of Ms. Ward’s writing since I listened to and was shocked by #TheLastHouseonNeedlessStreet - the book everyone seemed to be reading at the time. This book also had a creepy character or three and just when I THOUGHT maaaaybe I knew what was coming, I was thrown so far left that much like the character I felt disoriented and wondered what was true and what was reality. I thought I was reading a memoir from someone’s POV but then I was reading someone else tell the story but with subtle changes and obvious ones - like name changes ; because the author was ripped off. Or was he? Who was telling the story?? I’m not sure I enjoyed the retellings and confusion BUT this is the sort of story you’re in for with this author. It’s part thriller, dashed with horror, mixed with a heavy hand of confusion. But then, in a way you’d never known, things start to become clear. Or do they? I’m still maybe 10% unsure of what actually happened there lol but I know that I was enthralled and could not stop listening and I was totally invested in Wilder’s character - I actually was SO worried about him!! Time to DM and hash it all out. Still, highly recommend at ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ due to Wilder’s character, fantastic setting, and truly unexpected twists and spins on reality - something Catriona Ward does while also making you so disoriented - feeling like you are in the character’s shoes. Check this one out!!

Wait… what?!

Lol that was a trip.
It starts out slow af with three kids that become friends during the summer and become bonded by scary stories and experiences. Bonded by trauma?
The story goes on until they are adults and then takes a turn and gets very meta. I kept thinking oh this character is going insane and then I was like. Wait? I am going insane? It was a fun experience making you question pretty much everything but has some creepiness and jumpiness that you want in a horror book. I think Sundial is still my favorite by this author but this is a close second.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for an advanced listening copy.

This is my first book by this author and therefore I’m not sure if this is typical of her writing style or not but I found myself liking it at points and at others I was wishing it was over. It was strange and opaque and a book within a book within a book and it got super complicated at times. The same characters were represented by various names depending on which character’s book was being told so I found myself struggling at times but at the same time, the premise was quite intriguing. I think maybe if it had been a little bit shorter it may have helped some, but I’m not sure what could have been cut in order to do that.
Wilder and his family inherit his uncles house at the seashore of whistler bay and he strikes up an intense and awkward friendship with Harper and Nat while he’s there. Whistler Bay has a dark history of women going missing and a theory about the “Dagger Man” who creeps into kids bedrooms and takes pictures of them while they sleep holding a knife close to them. As the summer progresses, the teens use and betray each other and Wilder becomes increasingly unstable and the line between reality and fantasy start to blur. Wilder starts writing a book about his experiences at Whistler Bay, then Nat steals his idea and does the same. But then at some point I wondered if some of the characters were hallucinations of Wilders. There was just a lot to unpack.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this audiobook arc in exchange for my review.

I am realizing more and more that I am terrible at writing reviews for books I enjoyed. This had a surreal, gothic quality to it, but felt fresh because of the delivery of the storyline. Thank you to Tor & NetGalley for the ARC

Talk about a psychological thriller that makes you work! One really needs to be on their game while reading or listening to this book! There were several times in this book where I questioned if I really knew what was happening. This is a book about a book within a book. Whew!

Wilder Harlow is in a cottage in Maine writing the last book he will ever write. He is writing about the summer when he was a teenager when he made two friends while a killer was stalking the small New England town. It is about their gruesome discovery of a body. It is also about his ex-best friend, Sky who stole Wilder's unfinished memoir and published it as Looking Glass Sound. Fact and fiction blurs as Wilder finds notes from Sky and wonders if he what is real.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Yet, it is complicated, demands 100% attention, is twist filled, and turns the tables on readers many times during the book. Throughout the book, I kept wondering what was going on, thinking I had things figured out, to have the tables turned on me. Like Wilder, I began to wonder what was real, puzzled by what was happening and frustrated that I could not figure things out.

This is an intricately woven book that kept me on my toes. Catriona Ward does a good job keeping readers (at least this reader) in the dark, yet wanting more, and yearning for answers. Her writing is fabulous, and this book is very well thought out. I had no idea where she was going at any part of the book, yet I was invested in the story wanting to know how it would end.

Well written, well thought out, and unsettling.

This book was just ok. At times I found it a smidge confusing and the narrators were fine.
Over all, I would say it’s forgettable, which I find unfortunate and maybe I’m in the minority on this.

Thank you Netgalley & Macmillan Audio for an ALC of Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward!

This was my first book by this author, and I switched back and forth between the audiobook and ebook. For me, the audiobook was easier to follow. I think the narrator did a fantastic job with the story.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book - And to be honest, I can’t tell you what happened at the end. The plot went off the rails and it was really hard for me to follow - Not sure if it’s just me or what. The writing was great, which makes this book really hard to rate for me. The fact that I don’t know exactly what was going on in the book has me giving this a rating of 2.5 stars, rounding up to 3 for NG and Goodreads.

DNF @ 25%
The beginning started off mildly interesting but tapered off and just got boring for me… Annoying side characters that lacked strong development, big bummer since I had heard people discuss the excitement for this new release. Not one I will recommend

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC of Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward. She is fast becoming one of my favorite authors and can be counted on for a dark and unsettling read. The book is written in both the past and present. It is a book that makes you uncomfortable through the end.

Wilder is writing his memoir and returns to the small town in Maine where it started with his friends Nat and Harper and a serial killer. He weaves in stories of his college friends Sky who stole his work and turned it into a best selling book. He starts to lose his grip on reality.

Incredible audio production for a very unique, creepy book. Loved the narrators, they were perfect for this kind of story and their characters. I can only recommend this.

Rated 3.5 stars despite the Goodreads inability to be anywhere in the middle on a rating.

This audio arc of Looking Glass Sound is hard for me to rate because I think my brain aged out of it - I am a 1980s horror babe. All things horror. Every Stephen King under my belt. First in line for the classic horror movie releases. The weirdo in my family who has never seen Forrest Gump, but can repeat the lines of The Shining. All that said, with little understanding of the depth of a Catriona Ward novel, I requested this arc and then felt like I was in a master class of nuanced horror. That's a good thing, but nearing my 60s, and a 5 decades user of audio books, Looking Glass Sound requires every bit of concentration to follow the plot and brain fog is a real thing as you grow old.

I think had I been co-reading with a paperback where I could stop and catch up to the plot, it would have been an easier read for me. But, in a world where we are seeing authors recycle their own plots and bang out 5 hour audio books like bunnies in spring, I applaud Ward for creating such an in depth, layered world where the plot and characters are quite original.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

This is a really hard book to rate. I was confused from about the halfway point til the very end.
UMMM I am going to give it a high rating.. BUT not sure WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT!!!!!

so confused!

Quite a book with lost of twists when Wilder Harper starts to write his very last book in a lonely house on Maine's coast. When writing Wilder recalls the many nightmares of his past including his best friend Sky, who stole his manuscript to his first story and made a mint out of it. Some friend indeed!

It gets spooky when Wilder already suffering from fiction versus reality finds notes from Sky. He knows they are from her for she writes them in green ink her go to color.

This was quite a complicated tale with walked between the lines of mystery and horror and needed one's full attention to puzzle through. It unsettles you throughout and when you think you know, well you just don't

Thank you to Catriona Ward, (this is the third book of hers I have enjoyed), Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the ability to listen to this book, which comes out in August of 2023.

I enjoyed the narration for this book. I switched back and forth between listening to this on audio and reading it on my Kindle. I found it easier to follow via the audio version. Ward's writing is beautifully descriptive and eerie as are the characters. After finishing the book, I felt uneasy, confused, and creeped out. It went a little off the rails for me at the end which I think is why it left a lot to question at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
I honestly loved this audiobook. I thought it was well written and both narrators were great. You do have to pay close attention to follow all of the storylines and timelines that are going on with the different characters.
I did prefer the beginning of the book to the rest of it. It is almost like this is several books all in one.
Once I got approved for it I couldn’t stop listening for two days.
Wilder came off as a very interesting and multidimensional character. There are just so many levels to him. Harper I didn’t like as much.

3 stars

The word that keeps coming to mind with this one is "effortful." It's clear the author has gone to great pains to construct a complex web, but the reader also has to put in a lot of effort to maintain the care they may have felt when the strong start moves into that - at times - exhausting web.

When the novel begins, there's a great entry point into a young friend group and their relationships, experiences, and traumas at the nonfictional version of Looking Glass Sound. The characters struggle, make mistakes, and discover some pretty dark details about themselves and others. It's easy to get invested in their experiences.

As the novel progresses, this all changes. There are intentional reliability issues, new details coming forward all the time, and generally just what feels like complication for the sake of being complicated. I am all for twists and turns when they further the plot and character development, but this book made me feel like I was in a not so well-designed escape room. At various points, unfortunately, I just wanted to get out.

I'm sorry that this was my first exposure to this author because I've heard great things for a long time. I'll try other works but can't imagine recommending this one too often or heartily.

Thank you NetGalley, McMillan Audio and Catriona Ward for the audiobook version of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of this book portrays the story. It’s dark, the cave mysterious just as the sea can be mysterious. At first glance you might see a woman’s face. And you find yourself trying to decipher what’s real and what’s not. I’ve just finished this book and tempted to listen again because this story starts out as a strange boy meets another boy and girl his age on summer holiday. All three of them are a little odd with baggage and secrets of their own. Then we start throwing in witchcraft and murder and ghosts and Polaroid photos of a knife being held by a sleeping child’s neck.

But, as far as unreliable narrators go, our narrators aren’t just unreliable, they are writers. And, of course, writers create their worlds. So it might have a fleck of honesty, it might be based on reality, but as the audience we don’t know.

It’s still not quite clear at the end of the novel what parts are “true” and “fiction” but if you are a fan of funhouses and the dark and mysterious I definitely recommend this book. I may have missed some of the answers or maybe they were intentionally not answered, but I’d give this one a reread.

The one issue with the audiobook is with the fragment chapters. There are sprinkled chapters throughout the novel inspired by a word game. You take a word and change one letter to make a new word. Word. Sword. Sworn. Worn. Torn. However, it’s revealed in the late chapters of the book that there is supposed to be a coded message in this fragments - the last words in a line should relay a phrase. But since there is no visual grouping- we miss that. It might not even matter too much, but I did want to see it.

Overall a good read! I popped onto my library app and added another book of the author’s to my hold list.

It pains me to rate this, because The Last House on Needless Street is a five star, recommend to everyone type of book for me!

This book started off strong, I loved the friendship in the beginning and I felt like the characters were super well rounded, all with their own problems and traits, but eventually it just went off the deep end and not in an entertaining way. I felt for Wilder, especially after the betrayals he faced, as a self labeled wallflower, I could relate to him in a way, and he was probably my favorite character. I’m also a sucker for a serial killer book, so I enjoyed that element.

Where it fell flat for me was the last half of the book, there were so many twists and turns, that I felt like didn’t make sense and the explanation for things felt messy and not well thought out. You mean to tell me police discovered a certain serial killer in one part, but failed to recognize someone’s murder in another?

In the last hour, I felt like the book should have ended and I wasn’t really satisfied with the final ending.
I would also say this book was more of a mild suspenseful thriller than horror.
Either way, Catriona is still a top author in my mind, this one just wasn’t a defining book for me.

Please check TW’s for this one as this is lots of talk of murder and suicide.

Rating: 3.25/5
Ebook: the formatting was off, but I’m sure it’ll be fixed once it’s released on ebook platforms. I just found it hard to follow.
Audiobook: the narrator did a good job portraying the characters, accents were weird at times, but I would still listen to other books of theirs

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and TorNightfire for the ARC & ALC of this book. All opinions are my own.

First, thank you so much for a copy of this for review.

I had both ebook and audio. I was having a hard time with the formatting in the ebook, so when the audio dropped, I jumped at it so that i could give this book a fair shot.

Both the male and female narrator were great, excellent accents, really made the story.

Unfortunately, this really really fell flat for me. I found myself bored, then completely confused. And not confused in a fun way, confused in a way that was making me irritated.

Ward is an excellent writer, I just think after this one (I've read others), she just isn't for me.