I’m impressed. I wanted to wait to read this around Halloween. As far as haunted house stories go, Incidents Around The House shines with great ideas, excellent timing and execution. I’ve listened to the audiobook, and Delanie Nicole Gill’s narration awed me. It made a great story even more thrilling (and chilling).

Bela is eight-years-old and her family (Mommy, Daddo, Grandma Ruth) is everything for her. But there’s someone else in the house, an entity Bela calls “Other Mommy” who asks her every day if it can go inside her heart. Creepy. To make matters worse, Other Mommy is growing tired of waiting and asking the same question again and again, and starts to put some pressure on the family.

The horror here works on all levels. There’s, of course, a spectral figure haunting young Bela that grows restless and bolder. But there’s also more psychological horror tied to family secrets, lies, and complicated relationships. From the outside, everything looks fine, but dig deeper and the cracks start to show.

The child’s POV is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it gives the narrative a sense of wonder and vulnerability. On the other, it can narrow the lense through which the story is told and limit its complexity and emotional range. For me, Malerman pulled it off; Using Bela’s childlike innocence and naivete made the story even more disturbing and heart-wrenching. Sometimes it’s not about new ideas but about getting an emotional response from the reader. And he got one from me. Bela is convincingly childlike, uncomfortably perceptive, and likable. The adults, on the other hand, lack depth and feel more thinly sketched than her.

In all, Incidents Around The House impressed me. It works with childhood fears, adults nightmares, family drama, and haunted house/ghost story beats. And it all works well. While it may not break new ground, it remains enjoyable and unnerving, and that’s all I want from a good horror story..

Thank you NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this arc!

I haven’t read a book that scared me this much since I read Pet Semetary a few years ago! I legit had nightmares. But that’s what I hope for when I read a horror book. The storyline wasn’t my favorite but I liked the formatting and the fact that it was told through the eyes of a little girl. I would recommend this one for anyone who wants a good scare.

Highlights:
✨Narration: Melanie Nicole Gill’s narration gave me chills! Her voice for Bela is spot on! This little girl's voice still haunts me. Fantastic on audio!
✨Perfect Spooky Season Vibe: Haunted House, possible possessions, trauma-riddled horror
✨Ending: This one needs to be discussed!!

Bottom Line: What’s creepier than a ghost asking, “Can I go inside your heart?” If you haven’t read it, please do so this spooky season. Perfect spooky read!! 4.25⭐

This was a wonderfully creepy and fast paced horror novel about a family dealing with a demonic entity. Were aspects borrowed from such films like The Ring, Paranormal Activity, and The Blair Witch Project (just to name a few)? Absolutely! Did this make the novel any less enjoyable? Not at all. Bela's voice was a little grating to read at times-especially written in an almost stream of consciousness format-and her age being difficult to discern sometimes muddled my interpretation of some of the events (at first she read older-maybe 8 or 9 years old? But by the final third of the book I was leaning towards only 5 or 6). But overall this was a really fun horror, and even as I am typing this review I hear a creak in the attic above my head and know that, thanks to Josh Malerman, I probably won't get any sleep tonight!

This one I will be thinking about for a while - I’d put this in the same category as Piranesi, where I rotate back and forth from thinking it’s brilliant and that I loved it, to thinking that I am not quite sure what I was supposed to take away. Overall, horror wise, this was perfect - the #horror plot was absolutely brilliantly executed. Chilling, haunting, original, full body chills creepy, unputdownable.

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It was the emotional backstories in the latter half of the #book that took away from this one for me - while they were haunting in themselves and well written, it just seemed a bit rushed, and disingenuous that any parents were having conversations that deep and complexly worded with a child as young as I interpreted the child to be (yes, she is eighth, but I felt the character felt much younger physically, though she was very emotionally mature). I appreciated the theme and the fear of the parents’ mistakes haunting their child, but the pure horror portions of the plot were just far superior to the emotional ones, for me.

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That being said, the one emotional aspect that was absolutely incredibly moving was the child’s fear for her parents and the fear of potential divorce and separation, etc. That was gut wrenching and profound.

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I’ll admit, I’ve never been the biggest fan of #fiction told through a young child’s view (looking at you, Room), but this worked exceedingly well.

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This one focuses in on eight year old Bela, who is haunted in her own home by an evil being desperate to enter her heart and achieve reincarnation. Reminiscent of the bent neck lady in Haunting of House Hill (thinking of the TV series in this context), this terrifying figure goes from an imaginary friend to a force threatening to destroy Bela and her family from the inside out, as she torments and follows them throughout the #book.

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What do you do when your 8 year-old is being haunted by a sinister entity?

Incidents Around the House is my first Josh Malerman book and I liked it! There were some very creepy moments, but it's also sad. I pitied Ursula and Rust (Bela's parents). I also felt so sad for Bela, for the feeling of resignation? that remains even after days of finishing this book.

I ended up listening to this on audio and the narrator is A++

Wow, not sure what I expected with this one. I loved Bird Box so I knew I had to read Josh Malerman’s new book. It’s dark, creepy and thrilling. It kept me at the edge of my seat and I wasn’t sure how it would end. Loved it and plan to read all his books. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publishers for an Arc in exchange for my honest review.

I never knew I was scared of children narrating horror books but here we are. This was such a fast read due to the way it was formatted but wow, it packed a lot into it. The descriptions, the child that creeped me out, all of it wrapped into a great horror book for me. The very first page had me gripped and I can honestly say I never found myself bored while reading this.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group = Ballantine | Del Rey for the gifted copy for my honest review!

I think that this book is somewhat misrepresented as a terrifying book. Maybe I'm an outlier but I wanted to see more action and less back and forth between the parents. Overall I wanted more, and have been left unsatisfied by the author again.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for my advanced readers copy. GET THIS INTO MOVIE PRODUCTION NOW! This had me with literal goosebumps! Told from the point of view of a child just gave it even more creep factor. Oh and better believe my closet door will remain closed at night. I thoroughly enjoyed this!

The audiobook of this book is killer. Please go read it. This entire book is written from a child POV and omg adds to the creepy factor. I loved it.

Despite the fact that I can't watch scary movies/shows in the dead of daylight, I'm a sucker for a great spooky story! From the very beginning, Incidents Around the House had me hooked! It was entirely unnerving from the start. I've never read a story that was told from the point of view of an 8 year old, a fact that, admittedly had me questioning whether the story was actually really scary or if it was just the unique and strange point of view that made it seem so creepy! During the whole book, I found myself scared to turn the page just in case Other Mommy was hanging out on the next page ready to ask if she could enter my heart! The only part of the book that I found a little unbelievable was the conversations that the parents were having with their child. I realize that for most of them, they believed that she was asleep, but still, there were some really deep and reflective conversations happening, especially when you consider the strain that was already shrouding the couple. However, this quirk was easily overlooked in favor of spookiness!
All in all, a fun October read!

The “Other Mommy” has been haunting Bela for years, but it hasn’t been all bad. She used to be friendly and fun, but now she is getting stronger and Bela must answer her only question: can I go inside your heart? The story is told from Bela’s perspective and it works quite well here, although I have heard the audio version is not the way to go. The Other Mommy is creepy as hell and definitely got my hackles up. Grandma is a bad ass and I loved her character. The ending was not a huge surprise, but I still enjoyed the ride. I absolutely tore through this book.

This was such a creepy, fun ride. Oftentimes horror books fail to live up to the hype for me, but this was an exception. Really enjoyed it!

I’m sorry but this was horrible.
I saw so much positive buzz around online I was terribly excited to read it.
However the dialogue is awful. The way the adults talk to the child is embarrassing. I’m not sure they’d even speak that way to other adults. Maybe they’d write in a journal these words?
The perspective of the child makes you feel like you’re reading a poorly written child’s diary.
There were a few generally creepy scenes, that kept me going, but I just wanted to skim the entire book. It was hurting my brain to read.

I have to admit at first I didn't think I would like something written from a child's perspective. However, it added to the creepiness and overall atmosphere of how a child will handle a situation versus adult. Super creepy up until the end I had to admit I was disappointed with the ending, it just fell flat to me.

As always, I continue to find books from Josh Malerman a hit or a miss, not many are middle ground. Incidents Around the House was no different. It fell a bit short for me as I waited and waited for that 'gotcha' moment.

The novel was a fairly short, bit it took me forever to read. Sometimes a story feels like 'work' to read instead of the story pulling me along while I enjoy the ride. Bela was hard character to get behind and a lot of her dialog was painful to read. It was disjointed and like it is coming out of a kid, which it was, but it didn't lend to help the story along. Another minus here was the story was not creepy or scary. I kept reading and waiting for something to happen. Guess what, it didn't happen. The ending is good, but I'm not sure if it was worth the time to get there.

At first, only Bela could see “other mommy”, but as the story progress everyone can see her. I don't know the why or how. I guess I'll never know and that falls in the bucket with waiting for the horror and tension that never came.

The book has a great premise, simple and creepy. It’s giving Coraline and Poltergeist vibes. The perfect starting off point.

And let me say very clearly that I read this book really quickly I was very interested in what was going to happen next. and at multiple times, I was frustrated because I actually had to work rather than just read and finish this book. So, there’s a lot to say for that.

But, Other than that, everything else about the book was a complete fail to me.

First of all, we have the very very annoying construct of this book being written solely from the point of view of eight-year-old Bella. There are multiple problems with this for me.

I am not sure that Josh Malerman has ever met little alone interacted with an eight-year-old girl. There was absolutely no sense of characterization for Bela. I was in her head for the entire book and I have no idea what she was about. Other than the fact that she loved her parents, I guess? And, the book being written from this point of view made so much of the storytelling awkward.

There was so much of the book where the little girl was pretending to be asleep so that her parents could sit in front of her and give these long soliloquies about existential life things and about their marriage and about the way that life has failed them. Do people do this? Do they literally sit in front of their sleeping child and just dump their unhappiness and trauma?

Also, a lot of the exposition in the story had to come through this construct and it was very very awkward. You could just see how he was having to force these things intovthe prose . It was incredibly distracting. If even a third of the book had been written from a point of view of one of the other characters then it would’ve been a lot better.

Also, we have to talk about these other characters, the parents are nothing short of awful. There was absolutely no part of me that was worried that something bad was gonna happen to these towo because I was too busy hoping something bad would happen to these two.

Then we come to the fact that the actual horror elements of this book were just not very strong. There was la strong initial idea of our baddie, Other Mommy, and some great description that was creepy at the start, but then from there… Nothing ever happened, nothing developed.

We don’t get any backstory, we don’t get any reason that different things are happening, but the time I got to the end, which was completely foreseeable from the very beginning, I just was so disappointed. It’s like he just gave up.

The reality is, if I’m going to be scared at all, you have to give me something of substance to be scared of. You have to give me a reason that things are happening, you have to make me interested in the motivations not just of the good people but the bad people too. The same creepy jump scare over and over again isn’t gonna do it.

So much of the plot was just repetitive. We went to the same places doing the same thing for absolutely no reason. Over and over and over, rinse and repeat until the end.

Finally, perhaps most frustrating, He would insert plot points that you think are actually going to take the story somewhere interesting, and then within a page, completely undo that plot point.

There was one character in this book that I really really liked and I was very irritated by the ending that that character got.

So, by the end of this book, I was feeling three things I shouldn’t feel at the end of a horror novel, I was feeling irritated, disappointed, and that I just wanted it to be over.

This was fun, if a little unrealistic. I don't normally like books from the perspective of a child because they never ring true to me in terms of inner monologue, or even outer dialogue. The same is true for this book, unfortunately. The way the parents talk to their daughter (our main character, Bela) was extremely strange to me - I've never heard parents speak to a young kid this way, with this sort of flowery, "extra" language. I also found Bela not as believable as I wish she'd been - at times, she felt very immature and younger than her state age, but then at others, she read as more of a teen character than a child. It can be a difficult balance to nail, so it's understandable that the execution here fell flat. Still, there were several actual creepy moments here, and the Other Mommy was terrifying -- a pretty clear rip off of Coraline, but done in an inventive enough way that this stayed interesting until the end.

Another great read from Josh Malerman. He always has great characters, and of course a great story/plot, and pacing. Always look forward to the next release from Josh Malerman. #IncidentsAroundtheHouse #NetGalley